“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 severe.”
“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 pretend to love?”
She raised the lid of the teapot, 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 teacup to a servant. “Please don’t talk any more.”
“Is this to be all my satisfaction?”
“Papa said I was not to talk with you.”
“Do you sacrifice me like that? Ah, it’s too much!”
“I wish you’d wait a little,” said the girl in a voice just distinct enough to betray a quaver.
“Of course I’ll wait if you’ll give me hope. But you take my life away.”
“I’ll not give you up—oh no!” Pansy went on.
“He’ll try and make you marry someone else.”
“I’ll never do that.”
“What then are we to wait for?”
She hesitated again. “I’ll speak to Mrs. Osmond and she’ll help us.” It was in this manner that she for the most part designated her stepmother.
“She won’t help us much. She’s afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Of your father, I suppose.”
Pansy shook her little head. “She’s not afraid of anyone. We must have patience.”
“Ah, that’s an awful word,” Rosier groaned; he was deeply disconcerted. Oblivious of the customs of good society, he dropped his head into his hands and, supporting it with a melancholy grace, sat staring at the carpet. Presently he became aware of a good deal of movement about him and, as he looked up, saw Pansy making a curtsey—it was still her little curtsey of the convent—to the English lord whom Mrs. Osmond had introduced.
XXXIX
It will probably not surprise the reflective reader that Ralph Touchett should have seen less of his cousin since her marriage than he had done before that event—an event of which he took such a view as could hardly prove a confirmation of intimacy. He had uttered his thought, as we know, and after this had held his peace, Isabel not having invited him to resume a discussion which marked an era in their relations. That discussion had made a difference—the difference he feared rather than the one he hoped. It had not chilled the girl’s zeal in carrying out her engagement, but it had come dangerously near to spoiling a friendship. No reference was ever again made between them to Ralph’s opinion of Gilbert Osmond, and by surrounding this topic with a sacred silence they managed to preserve a semblance of reciprocal frankness. But there was a difference, as Ralph often said to himself—there was a difference. She had not forgiven him, she never would forgive him: that was all he had gained. She thought she had forgiven him; she believed she didn’t care; and as she was both very generous and very proud these convictions represented a certain reality. But whether or no the event should justify him he would virtually have done her a wrong, and the wrong was of the sort that women remember best. As Osmond’s wife she could never again be his friend. If in this character she should enjoy the felicity she expected, she would have nothing but contempt for the man who had attempted, in advance, to undermine a blessing so dear; and if on the other hand his warning should be justified the vow she had taken that he should never know it would lay upon her spirit such a burden as to make her hate him. So dismal had been, during the year that followed his cousin’s marriage, Ralph’s prevision of the future; and if his meditations appear morbid we must remember he was not in the bloom of health. He consoled himself as he might by behaving (as he deemed) beautifully, and was present at the ceremony by which Isabel was united to Mr. Osmond, and which was performed in Florence in the month of June. He learned from his mother that Isabel at first had thought of celebrating her nuptials in her native land, but that as simplicity was what she chiefly desired to secure she had finally decided, in spite of Osmond’s professed willingness to make a journey of any length, that this characteristic would be best embodied in their being married by the nearest clergyman in the shortest time. The thing was done therefore at the little American chapel, on a very hot day, in the presence only of Mrs. Touchett and her son, of Pansy Osmond and the Countess Gemini. That severity in the proceedings of which I just spoke was in part the result of the absence of two persons who might have been looked for on the occasion and who would have lent it a certain richness. Madame Merle had been invited, but Madame Merle, who was unable to leave Rome, had written a gracious letter of excuses. Henrietta Stackpole had not been invited, as her departure from America, announced to Isabel by Mr. Goodwood, was in fact frustrated by the duties of her profession; but she had sent a letter, less gracious than Madame Merle’s, intimating that, had she been able to cross the Atlantic, she would have been present not only as a witness but as a critic. Her return to Europe had taken place
