Page 520 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

doesn’t like dull people.’
‘But she’s good enough for me? Ah now, that’s hard!’
‘I only mean that you’ve ideas for two. And then you’re
so obliging.’
‘So is your husband.’
‘No, he’s not-to me.’ And Mrs. Osmond vaguely smiled.
‘That’s a sign he should be doubly so to other women.’
‘So I tell him,’ she said, still smiling.
‘You see I want some tea,’ Rosier went on, looking wist-
fully beyond.
‘That’s perfect. Go and give some to my young lady.’
‘Very good; but after that I’ll abandon her to her fate. The
simple truth is I’m dying to have a little talk with Miss Os-
mond.’
‘Ah,’ said Isabel, turning away, ‘I can’t help you there!’
Five minutes later, while he handed a tea-cup to the dam-
sel in pink, whom he had conducted into the other room,
he wondered whether, in making to Mrs. Osmond the pro-
fession I have just quoted, he had broken the spirit of his
promise to Madame Merle. Such a question was capable of
occupying this young man’s mind for a considerable time.
At last, however, he became-comparatively speaking-reck-
less; he cared little what promises he might break. The fate
to which he had threatened to abandon the damsel in pink
proved to be none so terrible; for Pansy Osmond, who had
given him the tea for his companion-Pansy was as fond as
ever of making tea-presently came and talked to her. Into
this mild colloquy Edward Rosier entered little; he sat by
moodily, watching his small sweetheart. If we look at her

520 The Portrait of a Lady