Page 448 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

Isabel gratified this respectful wish, drew off her gloves
and sat down to the piano, while Pansy, standing beside her,
watched her white hands move quickly over the keys. When
she stopped she kissed the child good-bye, held her close,
looked at her long. ‘Be very good,’ she said; ‘give pleasure to
your father.’
‘I think that’s what I live for,’ Pansy answered. ‘He has
not much pleasure; he’s rather a sad man.’
Isabel listened to this assertion with an interest which
she felt it almost a torment to be obliged to conceal. It was
her pride that obliged her, and a certain sense of decency;
there were still other things in her head which she felt a
strong impulse, instantly checked, to say to Pansy about her
father; there were things it would have given her pleasure
to hear the child, to make the child, say. But she no soon-
er became conscious of these things than her imagination
was hushed with horror at the idea of taking advantage of
the little girl—it was of this she would have accused her-
self—and of exhaling into that air where he might still have
a subtle sense for it any breath of her charmed state. She
had come—she had come; but she had stayed only an hour.
She rose quickly from the music-stool; even then, however,
she lingered a moment, still holding her small companion,
drawing the child’s sweet slimness closer and looking down
at her almost in envy. She was obliged to confess it to her-
self—she would have taken a passionate pleasure in talking
of Gilbert Osmond to this innocent, diminutive creature
who was so near him. But she said no other word; she only
kissed Pansy once again. They went together through the

448 The Portrait of a Lady