Page 546 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

‘It has just been filled; the servants never know!’-she
sighed with the weight of her responsibility.
‘Do you know what your father said to me just now? That
you didn’t mean what you said a week ago.’
‘I don’t mean everything I say. How can a young girl do
that? But I mean what I say to you.’
‘He told me you had forgotten me.’
‘Ah no, I don’t forget,’ said Pansy, showing her pretty
teeth in a fixed smile.
‘Then everything’s just the very same?’
‘Ah no, not the very same. Papa has been terribly se-
vere.’
‘What has he done to you?’
‘He asked me what you had done to me, and I told him
everything. Then he forbade me to marry you.’
‘You needn’t mind that.’
‘Oh yes, I must indeed. I can’t disobey papa.’
‘Not for one who loves you as I do, and whom you pre-
tend to love?’
She raised the lid of the tea-pot, gazing into this vessel
for a moment; then she dropped six words into its aromatic
depths. ‘I love you just as much.’
‘What good will that do me?’
‘Ah,’ said Pansy, raising her sweet, vague eyes, ‘I don’t
know that.’
‘You disappoint me,’ groaned poor Rosier.
She was silent a little; she handed a tea-cup to a servant.
‘Please don’t talk any more.’
‘Is this to be all my satisfaction?’

546 The Portrait of a Lady