“What your brother says has a point.”
“Yes, a poisoned one sometimes. If you mean that I’m not so clever as he you mustn’t think I shall suffer from your sense of our difference. But it will be much better that you should understand me.”
“Why so?” asked Madame Merle. “To what will it conduce?”
“If I don’t approve of your plan you ought to know it in order to appreciate the danger of my interfering with it.”
Madame Merle looked as if she were ready to admit that there might be something in this; but in a moment she said quietly: “You think me more calculating than I am.”
“It’s not your calculating I think ill of; it’s your calculating wrong. You’ve done so in this case.”
“You must have made extensive calculations yourself to discover that.”
“No, I’ve not had time. I’ve seen the girl but this once,” said the Countess, “and the conviction has suddenly come to me. I like her very much.”
“So do I,” Madame Merle mentioned.
“You’ve a strange way of showing it.”
“Surely I’ve given her the advantage of making your acquaintance.”
“That indeed,” piped the Countess, “is perhaps the best thing that could happen to her!”
Madame Merle said nothing for some time. The Countess’s manner was odious, was really low; but it was an old story, and with her eyes upon the violet slope of Monte Morello she gave herself up to reflection. “My dear lady,” she finally resumed, “I advise you not to agitate yourself. The matter you allude to concerns three persons much stronger of purpose than yourself.”
“Three persons? You and Osmond of course. But is Miss Archer also very strong of purpose?”
“Quite as much so as we.”
“Ah then,” said the Countess radiantly, “if I convince her it’s her interest to resist you she’ll do so successfully!”
“Resist us? Why do you express yourself so coarsely? She’s not exposed to compulsion or deception.”
“I’m not sure of that. You’re capable of anything, you and Osmond. I don’t mean Osmond by himself, and I don’t mean you by yourself. But together you’re dangerous—like some chemical combination.”
“You had better leave us alone then,” smiled Madame Merle.
“I don’t mean to touch you—but I shall talk to that girl.”
“My poor Amy,” Madame Merle murmured, “I don’t see what has got into your head.”
“I take an interest in her—that’s what has got into my head. I like her.”
Madame Merle hesitated a moment. “I don’t think she likes you.”
The Countess’s bright little eyes expanded and her face was set in a grimace. “Ah, you are dangerous—even by yourself!”
“If you want her to like you don’t abuse your brother to her,” said Madame Merle.
“I don’t suppose you pretend she has fallen in love with him in two interviews.”
Madame Merle looked a moment at Isabel and at the master of the house. He was leaning against the parapet, facing her, his arms folded; and she at present was evidently not lost in the mere impersonal view, persistently as she gazed at it. As Madame Merle watched her she lowered her eyes; she was listening, possibly with a certain embarrassment, while she pressed the point of her parasol into the path. Madame Merle rose from her chair. “Yes, I think so!” she pronounced.
The shabby footboy, summoned by Pansy—he might, tarnished as to livery and quaint as to type, have issued from some stray sketch of old-time manners, been “put in” by the brush of a Longhi or a Goya—had come out with a small table and placed it on the grass, and then had gone back and fetched the tea-tray; after which he had again disappeared, to return with a couple of chairs. Pansy had watched these proceedings with the deepest interest, standing with her small hands folded together upon the front of her scanty frock; but she had not presumed to offer assistance. When the tea-table had been arranged, however, she gently approached her aunt.
“Do you think papa would object to my making the tea?”
The Countess looked at her with a deliberately critical gaze and without answering her question. “My poor niece,” she said, “is that your best frock?”
“Ah no,” Pansy answered, “it’s just a little toilette for common occasions.”
“Do you call it a common occasion when I come to see you?—to say nothing of Madame Merle and the pretty lady yonder.”
Pansy reflected a moment, turning gravely from one of the persons mentioned to the other. Then her face broke into its perfect smile. “I have a pretty dress, but even that one’s very simple. Why should I expose it beside your beautiful things?”
“Because it’s the prettiest you have; for me you must always wear the prettiest. Please put it on the next time. It seems to me they don’t dress you so well as they might.”
The child sparingly stroked down her antiquated skirt. “It’s a good little dress to make tea—don’t you think? Don’t you believe papa would allow me?”
“Impossible for me to say, my child,” said the Countess. “For me, your father’s ideas are unfathomable. Madame Merle understands them better. Ask her.”
Madame Merle smiled with her usual grace. “It’s a weighty question—let me think. It seems to me it would please your father to see a careful little daughter making his tea. It’s the proper duty of the daughter of the house—when she grows up.”
“So it seems to me, Madame Merle!” Pansy cried. “You shall see how well I’ll make it. A spoonful for each.” And she began to busy herself at the table.
“Two spoonfuls for me,” said the Countess, who, with Madame Merle, remained for some moments watching her. “Listen to me, Pansy,” the Countess resumed at last. “I should like to know what you think of your visitor.”
“Ah, she’s not mine—she’s papa’s,” Pansy objected.
“Miss Archer came to see you as well,” said Madame Merle.
“I’m very happy to hear that. She has been very polite to me.”
“Do you like her then?” the Countess asked.
“She’s charming—charming,” Pansy repeated in her little neat conversational tone. “She pleases me thoroughly.”
“And how do you think she pleases your father?”
“Ah really, Countess!”
