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invitation she had come, and she imparted all due dignity to
the girl’s uncountenanced state. She played her part with the
tact that might have been expected of her, effacing herself
and accepting the position of a companion whose expenses
were profusely paid. The situation, however, had no hard-
ships, and people who met this reserved though striking pair
on their travels would not have been able to tell you which
was patroness and which client. To say that Madame Merle
improved on acquaintance states meagrely the impression
she made on her friend, who had found her from the first so
ample and so easy. At the end of an intimacy of three months
Isabel felt she knew her better; her character had revealed
itself, and the admirable woman had also at last redeemed
her promise of relating her history from her own point of
view-a consummation the more desirable as Isabel had al-
ready heard it related from the point of view of others. This
history was so sad a one (in so far as it concerned the late
M. Merle, a positive adventurer, she might say, though origi-
nally so plausible, who had taken advantage, years before, of
her youth and of an inexperience in which doubtless those
who knew her only now would find it difficult to believe); it
abounded so in startling and lamentable incidents that her
companion wondered a person so eprouvee could have kept
so much of her freshness, her interest in life. Into this fresh-
ness of Madame Merle’s she obtained a considerable insight;
she seemed to see it as professional, as slightly mechanical,
carried about in its case like the fiddle of the virtuoso, or
blanketed and bridled like the ‘favourite’ of the jockey. She
liked her as much as ever, but there was a corner of the cur-

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