Chapter 38

CHAPTER XXXVIII

He went to see Madame Merle on the morrow, and to his surprise
she let him off rather easily. But she made him promise that he
would stop there till something should have been decided. Mr.
Osmond had had higher expectations; it was very true that as he
had no intention of giving his daughter a portion such
expectations were open to criticism or even, if one would, to
ridicule. But she would advise Mr. Rosier not to take that tone;
if he would possess his soul in patience he might arrive at his
felicity. Mr. Osmond was not favourable to his suit, but it
wouldn't be a miracle if he should gradually come round. Pansy
would never defy her father, he might depend on that; so nothing
was to be gained by precipitation. Mr. Osmond needed to accustom
his mind to an offer of a sort that he had not hitherto
entertained, and this result must come of itself--it was useless
to try to force it. Rosier remarked that his own situation would
be in the meanwhile the most uncomfortable in the world, and
Madame Merle assured him that she felt for him. But, as she
justly declared, one couldn't have everything one wanted; she had
learned that lesson for herself. There would be no use in his
writing to Gilbert Osmond, who had charged her to tell him as
much. He wished the matter dropped for a few weeks and would
himself write when he should have anything to communicate that it
might please Mr. Rosier to hear.

"He doesn't like your having spoken to Pansy, Ah, he doesn't like
it at all," said Madame Merle.

"I'm perfectly willing to give him a chance to tell me so!"

"If you do that he'll tell you more than you care to hear. Go to
the house, for the next month, as little as possible, and leave
the rest to me."

"As little as possible? Who's to measure the possibility?"

"Let me measure it. Go on Thursday evenings with the rest of the
world, but don't go at all at odd times, and don't fret about
Pansy. I'll see that she understands everything. She's a calm
little nature; she'll take it quietly."

Edward Rosier fretted about Pansy a good deal, but he did as he
was advised, and awaited another Thursday evening before returning
to Palazzo Roccanera. There had been a party at dinner, so that
though he went early the company was already tolerably numerous.
Osmond, as usual, was in the first room, near the fire, staring
straight at the door, so that, not to be distinctly uncivil,
Rosier had to go and speak to him.

"I'm glad that you can take a hint," Pansy's father said, slightly
closing his keen, conscious eyes.

"I take no hints. But I took a message, as I supposed it to be."

"You took it? Where did you take it?"

It seemed to poor Rosier he