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Madame Merle, ‘you’ll have another mother.’
‘I don’t think that’s necessary,’ Pansy said, repeating her
little soft conciliatory sigh. ‘I had more than thirty mothers
at the convent.’
Her father’s step sounded again in the ante-chamber,
and Madame Merle got up, releasing the child. Mr. Os-
mond came in and closed the door; then, without looking
at Madame Merle, he pushed one or two chairs back into
their places. His visitor waited a moment for him to speak,
watching him as he moved about. Then at last she said: ‘I
hoped you’d have come to Rome. I thought it possible you’d
have wished yourself to fetch Pansy away.’
‘That was a natural supposition; but I’m afraid it’s not the
first time I’ve acted in defiance of your calculations.’
‘Yes,’ said Madame Merle, ‘I think you very perverse.’
Mr. Osmond busied himself for a moment in the room—
there was plenty of space in it to move about—in the fashion
of a man mechanically seeking pretexts for not giving an
attention which may be embarrassing. Presently, howev-
er, he had exhausted his pretexts; there was nothing left
for him—unless he took up a book—but to stand with his
hands behind him looking at Pansy. ‘Why didn’t you come
and see the last of Mamman Catherine?’ he asked of her
abruptly in French.
Pansy hesitated a moment, glancing at Madame Merle.
‘I asked her to stay with me,’ said this lady, who had seated
herself again in another place.
‘Ah, that was better,’ Osmond conceded. With which he
dropped into a chair and sat looking at Madame Merle; bent

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