The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 2

“Well now, I suppose you’re very happy and all that sort of thing?”

Isabel answered with a quick laugh; the tone of his remark struck her almost as the accent of comedy. “Do you suppose if I were not I’d tell you?”

“Well, I don’t know. I don’t see why not.”

“I do then. Fortunately, however, I’m very happy.”

“You’ve got an awfully good house.”

“Yes, it’s very pleasant. But that’s not my merit—it’s my husband’s.”

“You mean he has arranged it?”

“Yes, it was nothing when we came.”

“He must be very clever.”

“He has a genius for upholstery,” said Isabel.

“There’s a great rage for that sort of thing now. But you must have a taste of your own.”

“I enjoy things when they’re done, but I’ve no ideas. I can never propose anything.”

“Do you mean you accept what others propose?”

“Very willingly, for the most part.”

“That’s a good thing to know. I shall propose to you something.”

“It will be very kind. I must say, however, that I’ve in a few small ways a certain initiative. I should like for instance to introduce you to some of these people.”

“Oh, please don’t; I prefer sitting here. Unless it be to that young lady in the blue dress. She has a charming face.”

“The one talking to the rosy young man? That’s my husband’s daughter.”

“Lucky man, your husband. What a dear little maid!”

“You must make her acquaintance.”

“In a moment—with pleasure. I like looking at her from here.” He ceased to look at her, however, very soon; his eyes constantly reverted to Mrs. Osmond. “Do you know I was wrong just now in saying you had changed?” he presently went on. “You seem to me, after all, very much the same.”

“And yet I find it a great change to be married,” said Isabel with mild gaiety.

“It affects most people more than it has affected you. You see I haven’t gone in for that.”

“It rather surprises me.”

“You ought to understand it, Mrs. Osmond. But I do want to marry,” he added more simply.

“It ought to be very easy,” Isabel said, rising—after which she reflected, with a pang perhaps too visible, that she was hardly the person to say this. It was perhaps because Lord Warburton divined the pang that he generously forbore to call her attention to her not having contributed then to the facility.

Edward Rosier had meanwhile seated himself on an ottoman beside Pansy’s tea-table. He pretended at first to talk to her about trifles, and she asked him who was the new gentleman conversing with her stepmother.

“He’s an English lord,” said Rosier. “I don’t know more.”

“I wonder if he’ll have some tea. The English are so fond of tea.”

“Never mind that; I’ve something particular to say to you.”

“Don’t speak so loud every one will hear,” said Pansy.

“They won’t hear if you continue to look that way: as if your only thought in life was the wish the kettle would boil.”

“It has just been filled; the servants never know!”—and she sighed with the weight of her responsibility.

“Do you know what your father said to me just now? That you didn’t mean what you said a week ago.”

“I don’t mean everything I say. How can a young girl do that? But I mean what I say to you.”

“He told me you had forgotten me.”

“Ah no, I don’t forget,” said Pansy, showing her pretty teeth in a fixed smile.

“Then everything’s just the very same?”

“Ah no, not the very same. Papa has been terribly severe.”

“What has he done to you?”

“He asked me what you had done to me, and I told him everything. Then he forbade me to marry you.”

“You needn’t mind that.”

“Oh yes, I must indeed. I can’t disobey papa.”

“Not for one who loves you as I do, and whom you pretend to love?”

She raised the lid of the tea-pot, gazing into this vessel for a moment; then she dropped six words into its aromatic depths. “I love you just as much.”

“What good will that do me?”

“Ah,” said Pansy, raising her sweet, vague eyes, “I don’t know that.”

“You disappoint me,” groaned poor Rosier.

She was silent a little; she handed a tea-cup to a servant. “Please don’t talk any more.”

“Is this to be all my satisfaction?”