Page 726 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

Isabel was discomposed, but she was determined to be
good-humoured too. ‘You shouldn’t have gone to Naples
then. You should have stayed here to watch the affair.’
‘I had too much confidence in you. But do you think it’s
too late?’
‘You had better ask Pansy,’ said Isabel.
‘I shall ask her what you’ve said to her.’
These words seemed to justify the impulse of self-de-
fence aroused on Isabel’s part by her perceiving that her
visitor’s attitude was a critical one. Madame Merle, as we
know, had been very discreet hitherto; she had never criti-
cized; she had been markedly afraid of intermeddling. But
apparently she had only reserved herself for this occasion,
since she now had a dangerous quickness in her eye and an
air of irritation which even her admirable ease was not able
to transmute. She had suffered a disappointment which ex-
cited Isabel’s surprise-our heroine having no knowledge of
her zealous interest in Pansy’s marriage; and she betrayed it
in a manner which quickened Mrs. Osmond’s alarm. More
clearly than ever before Isabel heard a cold, mocking voice
proceed from she knew not where, in the dim void that sur-
rounded her, and declare that this bright, strong, definite,
worldly woman, this incarnation of the practical, the per-
sonal, the immediate, was a powerful agent in her destiny.
She was nearer to her than Isabel had yet discovered, and
her nearness was not the charming accident she had so long
supposed. The sense of accident indeed had died within her
that day when she happened to be struck with the manner
in which the wonderful lady and her own husband sat to-

726 The Portrait of a Lady