Page 378 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

looked serenely at her neighbour. ‘You know I never under-
stand you very well,’ she smiled.
‘No one can understand better than you when you wish.
I see that just now you don’t wish.’
‘You say things to me that no one else does,’ said Ma-
dame Merle gravely, yet without bitterness.
‘You mean things you don’t like? Doesn’t Osmond some-
times say such things?’
‘What your brother says has a point.’
‘Yes, a poisoned one sometimes. If you mean that I’m not
so clever as he you mustn’t think I shall suffer from your
sense of our difference. But it will be much better that you
should understand me.’
‘Why so?’ asked Madame Merle. ‘To what will it con-
duce?’
‘If I don’t approve of your plan you ought to know it in
order to appreciate the danger of my interfering with it.’
Madame Merle looked as if she were ready to admit that
there might be something in this; but in a moment she said
quietly: ‘You think me more calculating than I am.’
‘It’s not your calculating I think ill of; it’s your calculat-
ing wrong. You’ve done so in this case.’
‘You must have made extensive calculations yourself to
discover that.’
‘No, I’ve not had time. I’ve seen the girl but this once,’
said the Countess, ‘and the conviction has suddenly come
to me. I like her very much.’
‘So do I,’ Madame Merle mentioned.
‘You’ve a strange way of showing it.’

378 The Portrait of a Lady