Page 380 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

Madame Merle hesitated a moment. ‘I don’t think she
likes you.’
The Countess’s bright little eyes expanded and her face
was set in a grimace. ‘Ah, you are dangerous—even by your-
self!’
‘If you want her to like you don’t abuse your brother to
her,’ said Madame Merle.
‘I don’t suppose you pretend she has fallen in love with
him in two interviews.’
Madame Merle looked a moment at Isabel and at the
master of the house. He was leaning against the parapet,
facing her, his arms folded; and she at present was evident-
ly not lost in the mere impersonal view, persistently as she
gazed at it. As Madame Merle watched her she lowered her
eyes; she was listening, possibly with a certain embarrass-
ment, while she pressed the point of her parasol into the
path. Madame Merle rose from her chair. ‘Yes, I think so!’
she pronounced.
The shabby footboy, summoned by Pansy—he might, tar-
nished as to livery and quaint as to type, have issued from
some stray sketch of old-time manners, been ‘put in’ by the
brush of a Longhi or a Goyahad come out with a small ta-
ble and placed it on the grass, and then had gone back and
fetched the tea-tray; after which he had again disappeared,
to return with a couple of chairs. Pansy had watched these
proceedings with the deepest interest, standing with her
small hands folded together upon the front of her scanty
frock; but she had not presumed to offer assistance. When
the tea-table had been arranged, however, she gently ap-

380 The Portrait of a Lady