Page 702 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

Gardencourt where the dark ivy would cluster round the
edges of the glimmering window. There seemed to Isabel
in these days something sacred in Gardencourt; no chap-
ter of the past was more perfectly irrecoverable. When she
thought of the months she had spent there the tears rose
to her eyes. She flattered herself, as I say, upon her inge-
nuity, but she had need of all she could muster; for several
events occurred which seemed to confront and defy her.
The Countess Gemini arrived from Florence-arrived with
her trunks, her dresses, her chatter, her falsehoods, her fri-
volity, the strange, the unholy legend of the number of her
lovers. Edward Rosier, who had been away somewhere-no
one, not even Pansy, knew where-reappeared in Rome and
began to write her long letters, which she never answered.
Madame Merle returned from Naples and said to her with
a strange smile: ‘What on earth did you do with Lord War-
burton?’ As if it were any business of hers!

702 The Portrait of a Lady