Chapter 41

CHAPTER XLI

Osmond touched on this matter that evening for the first time;
coming very late into the drawing-room, where she was sitting
alone. They had spent the evening at home, and Pansy had gone to
bed; he himself had been sitting since dinner in a small
apartment in which he had arranged his books and which he called
his study. At ten o'clock Lord Warburton had come in, as he
always did when he knew from Isabel that she was to be at home;
he was going somewhere else and he sat for half an hour. Isabel,
after asking him for news of Ralph, said very little to him, on
purpose; she wished him to talk with her stepdaughter. She
pretended to read; she even went after a little to the piano; she
asked herself if she mightn't leave the room. She had come little
by little to think well of the idea of Pansy's becoming the wife
of the master of beautiful Lockleigh, though at first it had not
presented itself in a manner to excite her enthusiasm. Madame
Merle, that afternoon, had applied the match to an accumulation
of inflammable material. When Isabel was unhappy she always
looked about her--partly from impulse and partly by theory--for
some form of positive exertion. She could never rid herself of
the sense that unhappiness was a state of disease--of suffering
as opposed to doing. To "do"--it hardly mattered what--would
therefore be an escape, perhaps in some degree a remedy. Besides,
she wished to convince herself that she had done everything
possible to content her husband; she was determined not to be
haunted by visions of his wife's limpness under appeal. It would
please him greatly to see Pansy married to an English nobleman,
and justly please him, since this nobleman was so sound a
character. It seemed to Isabel that if she could make it her duty
to bring about such an event she should play the part of a good
wife. She wanted to be that; she wanted to be able to believe
sincerely, and with proof of it, that she had been that. Then
such an undertaking had other recommendations. It would occupy
her, and she desired occupation. It would even amuse her, and if
she could really amuse herself she perhaps might be saved.
Lastly, it would be a service to Lord Warburton, who evidently
pleased himself greatly with the charming girl. It was a little
"weird" he should--being what he was; but there was no accounting
for such impressions. Pansy might captivate any one--any one at
least but Lord Warburton. Isabel would have thought her too
small, too slight, perhaps even too artificial for that. There
was always a little of the doll about her, and that was not what
he had been looking for. Still, who could say what men ever were
looking for? They looked for what they found; they knew what
pleased