Page 377 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

Chapter 25

While this sufficiently intimate colloquy (prolonged for
some time after we cease to follow it) went forward Madame
Merle and her companion, breaking a silence of some dura-
tion, had begun to exchange remarks. They were sitting in an
attitude of unexpressed expectancy; an attitude especially
marked on the part of the Countess Gemini, who, being of a
more nervous temperament than her friend, practised with
less success the art of disguising impatience. What these
ladies were waiting for would not have been apparent and
was perhaps not very definite to their own minds. Madame
Merle waited for Osmond to release their young friend from
her tete-a-tete, and the Countess waited because Madame
Merle did. The Countess, moreover, by waiting, found the
time ripe for one of her pretty perversities. She might have
desired for some minutes to place it. Her brother wandered
with Isabel to the end of the garden, to which point her eyes
followed them.
‘My dear,’ she then observed to her companion, ‘you’ll
excuse me if I don’t congratulate you!’
‘Very willingly, for I don’t in the least know why you
should.’
‘Haven’t you a little plan that you think rather well of?’
And the Countess nodded at the sequestered couple.
Madame Merle’s eyes took the same direction; then she

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