Page 286 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

ception for you. You must remember that and must think
as well of me as possible. You must reward me by believing
in me.’
By way of answer Isabel kissed her, and, though some
women kiss with facility, there are kisses and kisses, and
this embrace was satisfactory to Madame Merle. Our young
lady, after this, was much alone; she saw her aunt and cous-
in only at meals, and discovered that of the hours during
which Mrs. Touchett was invisible only a minor portion was
now devoted to nursing her husband. She spent the rest in
her own apartments, to which access was not allowed even
to her niece, apparently occupied there with mysterious and
inscrutable exercises. At table she was grave and silent; but
her solemnity was not an attitude—Isabel could see it was
a conviction. She wondered if her aunt repented of having
taken her own way so much; but there was no visible evi-
dence of this—no tears, no sighs, no exaggeration of a zeal
always to its own sense adequate. Mrs. Touchett seemed
simply to feel the need of thinking things over and sum-
ming them up; she had a little moral account-book—with
columns unerringly ruled and a sharp steel clasp—which
she kept with exemplary neatness. Uttered reflection had
with her ever, at any rate, a practical ring. ‘If I had foreseen
this I’d not have proposed your coming abroad now,’ she
said to Isabel after Madame Merle had left the house. ‘I’d
have waited and sent for you next year.’
‘So that perhaps I should never have known my uncle?
It’s a great happiness to me to have come now.’
‘That’s very well. But it was not that you might know your

286 The Portrait of a Lady