Page 662 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

supreme simplicity, an innocence even more complete than
Isabel had yet judged it, gave to the most tentative enquiry
something of the effect of an admonition. As she knelt there
in the vague firelight, with her pretty dress dimly shining,
her hands folded half in appeal and half in submission, her
soft eyes, raised and fixed, full of the seriousness of the situ-
ation, she looked to Isabel like a childish martyr decked out
for sacrifice and scarcely presuming even to hope to avert
it. When Isabel said to her that she had never yet spoken to
her of what might have been going on in relation to her get-
ting married, but that her silence had not been indifference
or ignorance, had only been the desire to leave her at lib-
erty, Pansy bent forward, raised her face nearer and nearer,
and with a little murmur which evidently expressed a deep
longing, answered that she had greatly wished her to speak
and that she begged her to advise her now.
‘It’s difficult for me to advise you,’ Isabel returned. ‘I
don’t know how I can undertake that. That’s for your father;
you must get his advice and, above all, you must act on it.’
At this Pansy dropped her eyes; for a moment she said
nothing. ‘I think I should like your advice better than pa-
pa’s,’ she presently remarked.
‘That’s not as it should be,’ said Isabel coldly. ‘I love you
very much, but your father loves you better.’
‘It isn’t because you love me-it’s because you’re a lady,’
Pansy answered with the air of saying something very rea-
sonable. ‘A lady can advise a young girl better than a man.’
‘I advise you then to pay the greatest respect to your fa-
ther’s wishes.’

662 The Portrait of a Lady