Page 571 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

Madame Merle, in fact, had come back before it was too
late-too late, I mean, to recover whatever advantage she
might have lost. But meantime, if, as I have said, she was
sensibly different, Isabel’s feelings were also not quite the
same. Her consciousness of the situation was as acute as
of old, but it was much less satisfying. A dissatisfied mind,
whatever else it may miss, is rarely in want of reasons; they
bloom as thick as buttercups in June. The fact of Madame
Merle’s having had a hand in Gilbert Osmond’s marriage
ceased to be one of her titles to consideration; it might have
been written, after all, that there was not so much to thank
her for. As time went on there was less and less, and Isabel
once said to herself that perhaps without her these things
would not have been. That reflection indeed was instantly
stifled; she knew an immediate horror at having made it.
‘Whatever happens to me let me not be unjust,’ she said;
‘Let me bear my burdens myself and not shift them upon
others!’ This disposition was tested, eventually, by that in-
genious apology for her present conduct which Madame
Merle saw fit to make and of which I have given a sketch; for
there was something irritating-there was almost an air of
mockery-in her neat discriminations and clear convictions.
In Isabel’s mind to-day there was nothing clear; there was a
confusion of regrets, a complication of fears. She felt help-
less as she turned away from her friend, who had just made
the statements I have quoted: Madame Merle knew so little
what she was thinking of! She was herself moreover so un-
able to explain. jealous of her-jealous of her with Gilbert?
The idea just then suggested no near reality.

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