Page 552 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

mother what she was making of her life, and his mother had
simply answered that she supposed she was making the best
of it. Mrs. Touchett had not the imagination that communes
with the unseen, and she now pretended to no intimacy
with her niece, whom she rarely encountered. This young
woman appeared to be living in a sufficiently honourable
way, but Mrs. Touchett still remained of the opinion that
her marriage had been a shabby affair. It had given her no
pleasure to think of Isabel’s establishment, which she was
sure was a very lame business. From time to time, in Flor-
ence, she rubbed against the Countess Gemini, doing her
best always to minimize the contact; and the Countess re-
minded her of Osmond, who made her think of Isabel. The
Countess was less talked of in these days; but Mrs. Touchett
augured no good of that: it only proved how she had been
talked of before. There was a more direct suggestion of Isa-
bel in the person of Madame Merle; but Madame Merle’s
relations with Mrs. Touchett had undergone a perceptible
change. Isabel’s aunt had told her, without circumlocu-
tion, that she had played too ingenious a part; and Madame
Merle, who never quarrelled with any one, who appeared to
think no one worth it, and who had performed the miracle
of living, more or less, for several years with Mrs. Touchett
and showing no symptom of irritation-Madame Merle now
took a very high tone and declared that this was an accusa-
tion from which she couldn’t stoop to defend herself. She
added, however (without stooping), that her behaviour had
been only too simple, that she had believed only what she
saw, that she saw Isabel was not eager to marry and Osmond

552 The Portrait of a Lady