Page 740 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

last. ‘To what do you want to provoke me when you say such
things as that?’
‘I’ve thought over all the harm you can do me,’ Madame
Merle answered. ‘Your wife was afraid of me this morning,
but in me it was really you she feared.’
‘You may have said things that were in very bad taste;
I’m not responsible for that. I didn’t see the use of your go-
ing to see her at all: you’re capable of acting without her. I’ve
not made you afraid of me that I can see,’ he went on; ‘how
then should I have made her? You’re at least as brave. I can’t
think where you’ve picked up such rubbish; one might sup-
pose you knew me by this time.’ He got up as he spoke and
walked to the chimney, where he stood a moment bending
his eye, as if he had seen them for the first time, on the deli-
cate specimens of rare porcelain with which it was covered.
He took up a small cup and held it in his hand; then, still
holding it and leaning his arm on the mantel, he pursued:
‘You always see too much in everything; you overdo it; you
lose sight of the real. I’m much simpler than you think.’
‘I think you’re very simple.’ And Madame Merle kept her
eye on her cup. ‘I’ve come to that with time. I judged you, as
I say, of old; but it’s only since your marriage that I’ve un-
derstood you. I’ve seen better what you have been to your
wife than I ever saw what you were for me. Please be very
careful of that precious object.’
‘It already has a wee bit of a tiny crack,’ said Osmond
dryly as he put it down. ‘If you didn’t understand me before
I married it was cruelly rash of you to put me into such a
box. However, I took a fancy to my box myself; I thought it

740 The Portrait of a Lady