Pansy shook her head with a little wise smile. “Lord Warburton won’t propose simply to please papa.”
“Your father would like you to encourage him,” Isabel went on mechanically.
“How can I encourage him?”
“I don’t know. Your father must tell you that.”
Pansy said nothing for a moment; she only continued to smile as if she were in possession of a bright assurance. “There’s no danger—no danger!” she declared at last.
There was a conviction in the way she said this, and a felicity in her believing it, which conduced to Isabel’s awkwardness. She felt accused of dishonesty, and the idea was disgusting. To repair her self-respect she was on the point of saying that Lord Warburton had let her know that there was a danger. But she didn’t; she only said—in her embarrassment rather wide of the mark—that he surely had been most kind, most friendly.
“Yes, he has been very kind,” Pansy answered. “That’s what I like him for.”
“Why then is the difficulty so great?”
“I’ve always felt sure of his knowing that I don’t want—what did you say I should do?—to encourage him. He knows I don’t want to marry, and he wants me to know that he therefore won’t trouble me. That’s the meaning of his kindness. It’s as if he said to me: ‘I like you very much, but if it doesn’t please you I’ll never say it again.’ I think that’s very kind, very noble,” Pansy went on with deepening positiveness. “That is all we’ve said to each other. And he doesn’t care for me either. Ah no, there’s no danger.”
Isabel was touched with wonder at the depths of perception of which this submissive little person was capable; she felt afraid of Pansy’s wisdom—began almost to retreat before it. “You must tell your father that,” she remarked reservedly.
“I think I’d rather not,” Pansy unreservedly answered.
“You oughtn’t to let him have false hopes.”
“Perhaps not; but it will be good for me that he should. So long as he believes that Lord Warburton intends anything of the kind you say, papa won’t propose anyone else. And that will be an advantage for me,” said the child very lucidly.
There was something brilliant in her lucidity, and it made her companion draw a long breath. It relieved this friend of a heavy responsibility. Pansy had a sufficient illumination of her own, and Isabel felt that she herself just now had no light to spare from her small stock. Nevertheless it still clung to her that she must be loyal to Osmond, that she was on her honour in dealing with his daughter. Under the influence of this sentiment she threw out another suggestion before she retired—a suggestion with which it seemed to her that she should have done her utmost.
“Your father takes for granted at least that you would like to marry a nobleman.”
Pansy stood in the open doorway; she had drawn back the curtain for Isabel to pass. “I think Mr. Rosier looks like one!” she remarked very gravely.
XLVI
Lord Warburton was not seen in Mrs. Osmond’s drawing-room for several days, and Isabel couldn’t fail to observe that her husband said nothing to her about having received a letter from him. She couldn’t fail to observe, either, that Osmond was in a state of expectancy and that, though it was not agreeable to him to betray it, he thought their distinguished friend kept him waiting quite too long. At the end of four days he alluded to his absence.
“What has become of Warburton? What does he mean by treating one like a tradesman with a bill?”
“I know nothing about him,” Isabel said. “I saw him last Friday at the German ball. He told me then that he meant to write to you.”
“He has never written to me.”
“So I supposed, from your not having told me.”
“He’s an odd fish,” said Osmond comprehensively. And on Isabel’s making no rejoinder he went on to enquire whether it took his lordship five days to indite a letter. “Does he form his words with such difficulty?”
“I don’t know,” Isabel was reduced to replying. “I’ve never had a letter from him.”
“Never had a letter? I had an idea that you were at one time in intimate correspondence.”
She answered that this had not been the case, and let the conversation drop. On the morrow, however, coming into the drawing-room late in the afternoon, her husband took it up again.
“When Lord Warburton told you of his intention of writing what did you say to him?” he asked.
She just faltered. “I think I told him not to forget it.”
“Did you believe there was a danger of that?”
“As you say, he’s an odd fish.”
“Apparently he has forgotten it,” said Osmond. “Be so good as to remind him.”
“Should you like me to write to him?” she demanded.
“I’ve no objection whatever.”
“You expect too much of me.”
“Ah yes, I expect a great deal of you.”
“I’m afraid I shall disappoint you,” said Isabel.
“My expectations have survived a good deal of disappointment.”
“Of course I know that. Think how I must have disappointed myself! If you really wish hands laid on Lord Warburton you must lay them yourself.”
For a couple of minutes Osmond answered nothing; then he said: “That won’t be easy, with you working against me.”
Isabel started; she felt herself beginning to tremble. He had a way of looking at her through half-closed eyelids, as if he were thinking of her but scarcely saw her, which seemed to her to have a wonderfully cruel intention. It appeared to recognise her as a disagreeable necessity of thought, but to ignore her for the time as a presence. That effect had never been so marked as now. “I think you accuse me of something very base,” she returned.
“I accuse you of not being trustworthy. If he doesn’t after all come forward it will be because you’ve kept him off. I don’t know that it’s base: it is the kind of thing a woman always thinks she may do. I’ve no
