Page 785 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

For a moment the girl said nothing. Isabel had often
wondered what she thought of the apparent relations of her
father with his wife; but never by a glance, by an intima-
tion, had she let it be seen that she deemed them deficient
in an air of intimacy. She made her reflexions, Isabel was
sure; and she must have had a conviction that there were
husbands and wives who were more intimate than that. But
Pansy was not indiscreet even in thought; she would as little
have ventured to judge her gentle stepmother as to criticize
her magnificent father. Her heart may have stood almost as
still as it would have done had she seen two of the saints in
the great picture in the convent-chapel turn their painted
heads and shake them at each other. But as in this latter case
she would (for very solemnity’s sake) never have mentioned
the awful phenomenon, so she put away all knowledge of
the secrets of larger lives than her own. ‘You’ll be very far
away,’ she presently went on.
‘Yes; I shall be far away. But it will scarcely matter,’ Isa-
bel explained; ‘since so long as you’re here I can’t be called
near you.’
‘Yes, but you can come and see me; though you’ve not
come very often.’
‘I’ve not come because your father forbade it. To-day I
bring nothing with me. I can’t amuse you.’
‘I’m not to be amused. That’s not what papa wishes.’
‘Then it hardly matters whether I’m in Rome or in Eng-
land.’
‘You’re not happy, Mrs. Osmond,’ said Pansy.
‘Not very. But it doesn’t matter.’

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