The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
It was with these thoughts that he went again to Mrs. Osmond’s, Mrs. Osmond having an ‘‘evening’’—she had taken the Thursday of each week—when his presence could be accounted for on general principles of civility. The object of Mr. Rosier’s well-regulated affection dwelt in a high house in the very heart of Rome; a dark and massive structure, overlooking a sunny piazzetta in the neighbourhood of the Farnese Palace. In a palace, too, little Pansy lived—a palace in Roman parlance, but a dungeon to poor Rosier’s apprehensive mind. It seemed to him of evil omen that the young lady he wished to marry, and whose fastidious father he doubted of his ability to conciliate, should be immured in a kind of domestic fortress, which bore a stern old Roman name, which smelt of historic deeds, of crime and craft and violence, which was mentioned in ‘‘Murray’’ and visited by tourists who looked disappointed and depressed, and which had frescoes by Caravaggio in the piano nobile and a row of mutilated statues and dusty urns in the wide, nobly arched loggia overlooking the damp court where a fountain gushed out of a mossy niche. In a less preoccupied frame of mind he could have done justice to the Palazzo Roccanera; he could have entered into the sentiment of Mrs. Osmond, who had once told him that on settling themselves in Rome she and her husband chose this habitation for the love of local colour. It had local colour enough, and though he knew less about architecture than about Limoges enamel, he could see that the proportions of the windows, and even the details of the cornice, had quite the grand air. But Rosier was haunted by the conviction that at picturesque periods young girls had been shut up there to keep them from their true loves, and, under the threat of being thrown into convents, had been forced into unholy marriages. There was one point, however, to which he always did justice when once he found himself in Mrs. Osmond’s warm, rich-looking reception-rooms, which were on the second floor. He acknowledged that these people were very strong in bibelots. It was a taste of Osmond’s own— not at all of hers; this she had told him the first time he came to the house, when, after asking himself for a quarter of an hour whether they had better things than he, he was obliged to admit that they had, very much, and vanquished his envy, as a gentleman should, to the point of expressing to his hostess his pure admiration of her treasures. He learned from Mrs. Osmond that her husband had made a large collection before their marriage, and that, though he had obtained a number of fine pieces within the last three years, he had got his best things at a time when he had not the advantage of her advice. Rosier interpreted this information according to principles of his own. For ‘‘advice’’ read ‘‘money,’’ he said to himself; and the fact that Gilbert Osmond had landed his great prizes during his impecunious season confirmed his most cherished doctrine—the doctrine that a collector may freely be poor if he be only patient. In general, when Rosier presented himself on a Thursday evening, his first glance was bestowed upon the walls of the room; there were three or four objects that his eyes really yearned for. But after his talk with Madame Merle he felt the extreme seriousness of his position; and now when he came in, he looked about for the daughter of the house with such eagerness as might be permitted to a gentleman who always crossed a threshold with an optimistic smile.
37
PANSY was not in the first of the rooms, a large apartment with a concave ceiling and walls covered with old red damask; it was here that Mrs. Osmond usually sat—though she was not in her usually customary place to-night— and that a circle of more especial intimates gathered about the fire. The room was warm, with a sort of subdued brightness; it contained the larger things, and—almost always—an odour of flowers. Pansy on this occasion was presumably in the chamber beyond, the resort of younger visitors, where tea was served. Osmond stood before the chimney, leaning back, with his hands behind him; he had one foot up and was warming the sole. Half a dozen people, scattered near him, were talking together; but he was not in the conversation; his eyes were fixed, abstractedly. Rosier, coming in unannounced, failed to attract his attention; but the young man, who was very punctilious, though he was even exceptionally conscious that it was the wife, not the husband, he had come to see, went up to shake hands with him. Osmond put out his left hand, without changing his attitude.
‘‘How d’ye do? My wife’s somewhere about.’’
‘‘Never fear; I shall find her,’’ said Rosier, cheerfully. Osmond stood looking at him; he had never before felt the keenness of this gentleman’s eyes. ‘‘Madame Merle has told him, and he doesn’t like it,’’ Rosier said to himself. He had hoped Madame Merle would be there; but she was not within sight; perhaps she was in one of the other rooms, or would come later. He had never especially delighted in Gilbert Osmond; he had a fancy that he gave himself airs. But Rosier was not quickly resentful, and where politeness was concerned he had an inveterate wish to be in the right. He looked round him, smiling, and then, in a moment, he said: ‘‘I saw a jolly good piece of Capo di Monte to-day.’’
Osmond answered nothing at first; but presently, while he warmed his boot-sole, ‘‘I don’t care a fig for Capo di Monte!’’ he returned.
‘‘I hope you are not losing your interest?’’
‘‘In old pots and plates? Yes, I am losing my interest.’’
Rosier for a moment forgot the delicacy of his position.
‘‘You are not thinking of parting with a—a piece or two?’’
‘‘No, I am not thinking of parting with anything at all, Mr. Rosier,’’ said Osmond, with his eyes still on the eyes of his visitor.
‘‘Ah, you want to keep, but not to add,’’ Rosier remarked, brightly.
‘‘Exactly. I have nothing that I wish to match.’’
Poor Rosier was aware that he had blushed, and he was distressed at his want of assurance. ‘‘Ah, well, I have!’’ was all that he could murmur; and he knew that his murmur was partly lost as he turned away. He took his course to the adjoining room, and met Mrs. Osmond coming out of the deep doorway. She was dressed in black velvet; she looked brilliant and noble. We know what Mr. Rosier thought of her, and the terms in which, to Madame Merle, he had expressed his admiration. Like his appreciation of her dear little stepdaughter, it was based partly on his fine sense of the plastic; but also on a relish for a more impalpable sort of merit—that merit of a bright spirit, which Rosier’s devotion to brittle wares had not made him cease to regard as a quality. Mrs. Osmond, at present, might well have gratified such tastes. The years had touched her only to enrich her; the flower of her youth had not faded; it only hung more quietly on its stem. She had lost something of that quick eagerness to which her husband had privately taken exception—she had more the air of being able to wait. Now, at all events, framed in the gilded doorway, she struck our young man as the picture of a gracious lady.
‘‘You see I am very regular,’’ he said. ‘‘But who should be if I am not?’’
‘‘Yes, I have known you longer than any one here. But we must not indulge in tender reminiscences. I want to introduce you to a young lady.’’
‘‘Ah, please, what young lady?’’ Rosier was immensely obliging; but this was not what he had come for.
‘‘She sits there by the fire in pink, and has no one to speak to.’’
Rosier hesitated a moment.
‘‘Can’t Mr. Osmond speak to her? He is within six feet of her.’’
Mrs. Osmond also hesitated.
‘‘She is not very lively, and he doesn’t like dull people.’’
‘‘But she is good enough for me? Ah now, that is hard.’’
‘‘I only mean that you have ideas for two. And then you are so obliging.’’
‘‘So is your husband.’’
‘‘No, he is not—to me.’’ And Mrs. Osmond smiled vaguely.
‘‘That’s a sign he should be doubly so to other women.’’
‘‘So I tell him,’’ said Mrs. Osmond, still smiling.
‘‘You see I want some tea,’’ Rosier went on, looking wistfully beyond.
‘‘That’s perfect. Go and give
some to my young lady.’’
‘‘Very good; but after that I will abandon her to her fate. The simple truth is that I am dying to have a little talk with Miss Osmond.’’
‘‘Ah,’’ said Isabel, turning away, ‘‘I can’t help you there!’’
Five minutes later, while he handed a tea-cup to the young lady in pink, whom he had conducted into the other room, he wondered whether, in making to Mrs. Osmond the profession I have just quoted, he had broken the spirit of his promise to Madame Merle. Such a question was capable of occupying this young man’s mind for a considerable time. At last, however, he became—comparatively speaking—reckless, and cared little what promises he might break. The fate to which he had threatened to abandon the young lady in pink proved to be none so terrible; for Pansy Osmond, who had given him the tea for his companion—Pansy was as fond as ever of making tea—presently came and talked to her. Into this mild colloquy Edward Rosier entered little; he sat by moodily, watching his small sweetheart. If we look at her now through his eyes, we shall at first not see much to remind us of the obedient little girl who, at Florence, three years before, was sent to walk short distances in the Cascine while her father and Miss Archer talked together of matters sacred to elder people. But after a moment we shall perceive that if at nineteen Pansy has become a young lady, she does not really fill out the part; that if she has grown very pretty, she lacks in a deplorable degree the quality known and esteemed in the appearance of females as style; and that if she is dressed with great freshness, she wears her smart attire with an undisguised appearance of saving it—very much as if it were lent her for the occasion. Edward Rosier, it would seem, would have been just the man to note these defects; and in point of fact there was not a quality of this young lady, of any sort, that he had not noted. Only he called her qualities by names of his own—some of which indeed were happy enough. ‘‘No, she is unique—she is absolutely unique,’’ he used to say to himself; and you may be sure that not for an instant would he have admitted to you that she was wanting in style. Style? Why, she had the style of a little princess; if you couldn’t see it you had no eye. It was not modern, it was not conscious, it would produce no impression in Broadway; the small, serious damsel, in her stiff little dress, only looked like an Infanta of Velasquez. This was enough for Edward Rosier, who thought her delightfully old-fashioned. Her anxious eyes, her charming lips, her slip of a figure, were as touching as a childish prayer. He had now an acute desire to know just to what point she liked him—a desire which made him fidget as he sat in his chair. It made him feel hot, so that he had to pat his forehead with his handkerchief; he had never been so uncomfortable. She was such a perfect jeune fille; and one couldn’t make of a jeune fille the inquiry necessary for throwing light on such a point. A jeune fille was what Rosier had always dreamed of—a jeune fille who should yet not be French, for he had felt that this nationality would complicate the question. He was sure that Pansy had never looked at a newspaper, and that, in the way of novels, if she had read Sir Walter Scott it was the very most. An American jeune fille; what would be better than that? She would be frank and gay, and yet would not have walked alone, nor have received letters from men, nor have been taken to the theatre to see the comedy of manners. Rosier could not deny that, as the matter stood, it would be a breach of hospitality to appeal directly to this unsophisticated creature; but he was now in imminent danger of asking himself whether hospitality were the most sacred thing in the world. Was not the sentiment that he entertained for Miss Osmond of infinitely greater importance? Of greater importance to him—yes; but not probably to the master of the house. There was one comfort; even if this gentleman had been placed on his guard by Madame Merle, he would not have extended the warning to Pansy; it would not have been part of his policy to let her know that a prepossessing young man was in love with her. But he was in love with her, the prepossessing young man; and all these restrictions of circumstance had ended by irritating him. What had Gilbert Osmond meant by giving him two fingers of his left hand? If Osmond was rude, surely he himself might be bold. He felt extremely bold after the dull girl in pink had responded to the call of her mother, who came in to say, with a significant simper at Rosier, that she must carry her off to other triumphs. The mother and daughter departed together, and now it depended only upon him that he should be virtually alone with Pansy. He had never been alone with her before; he had never been alone with a jeune fille. It was a great moment; poor Rosier began to pat his forehead again. There was another room, beyond the one in which they stood—a small room which had been thrown open and lighted, but, the company not being numerous, had remained empty all the evening. It was empty yet; it was upholstered in pale yellow; there were several lamps; through the open door it looked very pretty. Rosier stood a moment, gazing through this aperture; he was afraid that Pansy would run away, and felt almost capable of stretching out a hand to detain her. But she lingered where the young lady in pink had left them, making no motion to join a knot of visitors on the other side of the room. For a moment it occurred to him that she was frightened—too frightened perhaps to move; but a glance assured him that she was not, and then he reflected that she was too innocent, indeed, for that. After a moment’s supreme hesitation he asked her whether he might go and look at the yellow room, which seemed so attractive yet so virginal. He had been there already with Osmond, to inspect the furniture, which was of the First French Empire, and especially to admire the clock (which he did not really admire), an immense classic structure of that period. He therefore felt that he had now begun to manoeuvre.
‘‘Certainly, you may go,’’ said Pansy; ‘‘and if you like, I will show you.’’ She was not in the least frightened.
‘‘That’s just what I hoped you would say; you are so very kind,’’ Rosier murmured.
They went in together; Rosier really thought the room very ugly, and it seemed cold. The same idea appeared to have struck Pansy.
‘‘It’s not for winter evenings; it’s more for summer,’’ she said. ‘‘It’s papa’s taste; he has so much.’’
He had a good deal, Rosier thought; but some of it was bad. He looked about him; he hardly knew what to say in such a situation. ‘‘Doesn’t Mrs. Osmond care how her rooms are done? Has she no taste?’’ he asked.
‘‘Oh yes, a great deal; but it’s more for literature,’’ said Pansy, ‘‘—and for conversation. But papa cares also for those things: I think he knows everything.’’
Rosier was silent a moment. ‘‘There is one thing I am sure he knows!’’ he broke out presently. ‘‘He knows that when I come here it is, with all respect to him, with all respect to Mrs. Osmond, who is so charming—it is really,’’ said the young man, ‘‘to see you!’’
‘‘To see me?’’ asked Pansy, raising her vaguely troubled eyes.
‘‘To see you; that’s what I come for,’’ Rosier repeated, feeling the intoxication of a rupture with authority. Pansy stood looking at him, simply, intently, openly; a blush was not needed to make her face more modest.
‘‘I thought it was for that,’’ she said.
‘‘And it was not disagreeable to you?’’
‘‘I couldn’t tell; I didn’t know. You never told me,’’ said Pansy.
‘‘I was afraid of offending you.’’
‘‘You don’t offend me,’’ the young girl murmured, smiling as if an angel had kissed her.
‘‘You like me then, Pansy?’’ Rosier asked, very gently, feeling very happy.
‘‘Yes—I like you.’’
They had walked to the chimney-piece, where the big cold Empire clock was perched; they were well within the room, and beyond observation from without. The tone in which she had said these four words seemed to him the very breath of nature, and his only answer could be to take her hand and hold it a moment. Then he raised it to his lips. She submitted, still with her pure, trusting smile, in which there was something ineffably passive. She liked him—she had liked him all the while;
now anything might happen! She was ready—she had been ready always, waiting for him to speak. If he had not spoken she would have waited forever; but when the word came she dropped like the peach from the shaken tree. Rosier felt that if he should draw her towards him and hold her to his heart, she would submit without a murmur, she would rest there without a question. It was true that this would be a rash experiment in a yellow Empire salottino. She had known it was for her he came; and yet like what a perfect little lady she had carried it off!
‘‘You are very dear to me,’’ he murmured, trying to believe that there was after all such a thing as hospitality.
She looked a moment at her hand, where he had kissed it. ‘‘Did you say that papa knows?’’
‘‘You told me just now he knows everything.’’
‘‘I think you must make sure,’’ said Pansy.
‘‘Ah, my dear, when once I am sure of you!’’ Rosier murmured in her ear, while she turned back to the other rooms with a little air of consistency which seemed to imply that their appeal should be immediate.
The other rooms meanwhile had become conscious of the arrival of Madame Merle, who, wherever she went, produced an impression when she entered. How she did it the most attentive spectator could not have told you; for she neither spoke loud, nor laughed profusely, nor moved rapidly, nor dressed with splendour, nor appealed in any appreciable manner to the audience. Large, fair, smiling, serene, there was something in her very tranquillity that diffused itself, and when people looked round it was because of a sudden quiet. On this occasion she had done the quietest thing she could do; after embracing Mrs. Osmond, which was more striking, she had sat down on a small sofa to commune with the master of the house. There was a brief exchange of commonplaces between these two—they always paid, in public, a certain formal tribute to the commonplace—and then Madame Merle, whose eyes had been wandering, asked if little Mr. Rosier had come this evening.
‘‘He came nearly an hour ago—but he has disappeared,’’ Osmond said.
37
PANSY was not in the first of the rooms, a large apartment with a concave ceiling and walls covered with old red damask; it was here that Mrs. Osmond usually sat—though she was not in her usually customary place to-night— and that a circle of more especial intimates gathered about the fire. The room was warm, with a sort of subdued brightness; it contained the larger things, and—almost always—an odour of flowers. Pansy on this occasion was presumably in the chamber beyond, the resort of younger visitors, where tea was served. Osmond stood before the chimney, leaning back, with his hands behind him; he had one foot up and was warming the sole. Half a dozen people, scattered near him, were talking together; but he was not in the conversation; his eyes were fixed, abstractedly. Rosier, coming in unannounced, failed to attract his attention; but the young man, who was very punctilious, though he was even exceptionally conscious that it was the wife, not the husband, he had come to see, went up to shake hands with him. Osmond put out his left hand, without changing his attitude.
‘‘How d’ye do? My wife’s somewhere about.’’
‘‘Never fear; I shall find her,’’ said Rosier, cheerfully. Osmond stood looking at him; he had never before felt the keenness of this gentleman’s eyes. ‘‘Madame Merle has told him, and he doesn’t like it,’’ Rosier said to himself. He had hoped Madame Merle would be there; but she was not within sight; perhaps she was in one of the other rooms, or would come later. He had never especially delighted in Gilbert Osmond; he had a fancy that he gave himself airs. But Rosier was not quickly resentful, and where politeness was concerned he had an inveterate wish to be in the right. He looked round him, smiling, and then, in a moment, he said: ‘‘I saw a jolly good piece of Capo di Monte to-day.’’
Osmond answered nothing at first; but presently, while he warmed his boot-sole, ‘‘I don’t care a fig for Capo di Monte!’’ he returned.
‘‘I hope you are not losing your interest?’’
‘‘In old pots and plates? Yes, I am losing my interest.’’
Rosier for a moment forgot the delicacy of his position.
‘‘You are not thinking of parting with a—a piece or two?’’
‘‘No, I am not thinking of parting with anything at all, Mr. Rosier,’’ said Osmond, with his eyes still on the eyes of his visitor.
‘‘Ah, you want to keep, but not to add,’’ Rosier remarked, brightly.
‘‘Exactly. I have nothing that I wish to match.’’
Poor Rosier was aware that he had blushed, and he was distressed at his want of assurance. ‘‘Ah, well, I have!’’ was all that he could murmur; and he knew that his murmur was partly lost as he turned away. He took his course to the adjoining room, and met Mrs. Osmond coming out of the deep doorway. She was dressed in black velvet; she looked brilliant and noble. We know what Mr. Rosier thought of her, and the terms in which, to Madame Merle, he had expressed his admiration. Like his appreciation of her dear little stepdaughter, it was based partly on his fine sense of the plastic; but also on a relish for a more impalpable sort of merit—that merit of a bright spirit, which Rosier’s devotion to brittle wares had not made him cease to regard as a quality. Mrs. Osmond, at present, might well have gratified such tastes. The years had touched her only to enrich her; the flower of her youth had not faded; it only hung more quietly on its stem. She had lost something of that quick eagerness to which her husband had privately taken exception—she had more the air of being able to wait. Now, at all events, framed in the gilded doorway, she struck our young man as the picture of a gracious lady.
‘‘You see I am very regular,’’ he said. ‘‘But who should be if I am not?’’
‘‘Yes, I have known you longer than any one here. But we must not indulge in tender reminiscences. I want to introduce you to a young lady.’’
‘‘Ah, please, what young lady?’’ Rosier was immensely obliging; but this was not what he had come for.
‘‘She sits there by the fire in pink, and has no one to speak to.’’
Rosier hesitated a moment.
‘‘Can’t Mr. Osmond speak to her? He is within six feet of her.’’
Mrs. Osmond also hesitated.
‘‘She is not very lively, and he doesn’t like dull people.’’
‘‘But she is good enough for me? Ah now, that is hard.’’
‘‘I only mean that you have ideas for two. And then you are so obliging.’’
‘‘So is your husband.’’
‘‘No, he is not—to me.’’ And Mrs. Osmond smiled vaguely.
‘‘That’s a sign he should be doubly so to other women.’’
‘‘So I tell him,’’ said Mrs. Osmond, still smiling.
‘‘You see I want some tea,’’ Rosier went on, looking wistfully beyond.
‘‘That’s perfect. Go and give
‘‘Very good; but after that I will abandon her to her fate. The simple truth is that I am dying to have a little talk with Miss Osmond.’’
‘‘Ah,’’ said Isabel, turning away, ‘‘I can’t help you there!’’
Five minutes later, while he handed a tea-cup to the young lady in pink, whom he had conducted into the other room, he wondered whether, in making to Mrs. Osmond the profession I have just quoted, he had broken the spirit of his promise to Madame Merle. Such a question was capable of occupying this young man’s mind for a considerable time. At last, however, he became—comparatively speaking—reckless, and cared little what promises he might break. The fate to which he had threatened to abandon the young lady in pink proved to be none so terrible; for Pansy Osmond, who had given him the tea for his companion—Pansy was as fond as ever of making tea—presently came and talked to her. Into this mild colloquy Edward Rosier entered little; he sat by moodily, watching his small sweetheart. If we look at her now through his eyes, we shall at first not see much to remind us of the obedient little girl who, at Florence, three years before, was sent to walk short distances in the Cascine while her father and Miss Archer talked together of matters sacred to elder people. But after a moment we shall perceive that if at nineteen Pansy has become a young lady, she does not really fill out the part; that if she has grown very pretty, she lacks in a deplorable degree the quality known and esteemed in the appearance of females as style; and that if she is dressed with great freshness, she wears her smart attire with an undisguised appearance of saving it—very much as if it were lent her for the occasion. Edward Rosier, it would seem, would have been just the man to note these defects; and in point of fact there was not a quality of this young lady, of any sort, that he had not noted. Only he called her qualities by names of his own—some of which indeed were happy enough. ‘‘No, she is unique—she is absolutely unique,’’ he used to say to himself; and you may be sure that not for an instant would he have admitted to you that she was wanting in style. Style? Why, she had the style of a little princess; if you couldn’t see it you had no eye. It was not modern, it was not conscious, it would produce no impression in Broadway; the small, serious damsel, in her stiff little dress, only looked like an Infanta of Velasquez. This was enough for Edward Rosier, who thought her delightfully old-fashioned. Her anxious eyes, her charming lips, her slip of a figure, were as touching as a childish prayer. He had now an acute desire to know just to what point she liked him—a desire which made him fidget as he sat in his chair. It made him feel hot, so that he had to pat his forehead with his handkerchief; he had never been so uncomfortable. She was such a perfect jeune fille; and one couldn’t make of a jeune fille the inquiry necessary for throwing light on such a point. A jeune fille was what Rosier had always dreamed of—a jeune fille who should yet not be French, for he had felt that this nationality would complicate the question. He was sure that Pansy had never looked at a newspaper, and that, in the way of novels, if she had read Sir Walter Scott it was the very most. An American jeune fille; what would be better than that? She would be frank and gay, and yet would not have walked alone, nor have received letters from men, nor have been taken to the theatre to see the comedy of manners. Rosier could not deny that, as the matter stood, it would be a breach of hospitality to appeal directly to this unsophisticated creature; but he was now in imminent danger of asking himself whether hospitality were the most sacred thing in the world. Was not the sentiment that he entertained for Miss Osmond of infinitely greater importance? Of greater importance to him—yes; but not probably to the master of the house. There was one comfort; even if this gentleman had been placed on his guard by Madame Merle, he would not have extended the warning to Pansy; it would not have been part of his policy to let her know that a prepossessing young man was in love with her. But he was in love with her, the prepossessing young man; and all these restrictions of circumstance had ended by irritating him. What had Gilbert Osmond meant by giving him two fingers of his left hand? If Osmond was rude, surely he himself might be bold. He felt extremely bold after the dull girl in pink had responded to the call of her mother, who came in to say, with a significant simper at Rosier, that she must carry her off to other triumphs. The mother and daughter departed together, and now it depended only upon him that he should be virtually alone with Pansy. He had never been alone with her before; he had never been alone with a jeune fille. It was a great moment; poor Rosier began to pat his forehead again. There was another room, beyond the one in which they stood—a small room which had been thrown open and lighted, but, the company not being numerous, had remained empty all the evening. It was empty yet; it was upholstered in pale yellow; there were several lamps; through the open door it looked very pretty. Rosier stood a moment, gazing through this aperture; he was afraid that Pansy would run away, and felt almost capable of stretching out a hand to detain her. But she lingered where the young lady in pink had left them, making no motion to join a knot of visitors on the other side of the room. For a moment it occurred to him that she was frightened—too frightened perhaps to move; but a glance assured him that she was not, and then he reflected that she was too innocent, indeed, for that. After a moment’s supreme hesitation he asked her whether he might go and look at the yellow room, which seemed so attractive yet so virginal. He had been there already with Osmond, to inspect the furniture, which was of the First French Empire, and especially to admire the clock (which he did not really admire), an immense classic structure of that period. He therefore felt that he had now begun to manoeuvre.
‘‘Certainly, you may go,’’ said Pansy; ‘‘and if you like, I will show you.’’ She was not in the least frightened.
‘‘That’s just what I hoped you would say; you are so very kind,’’ Rosier murmured.
They went in together; Rosier really thought the room very ugly, and it seemed cold. The same idea appeared to have struck Pansy.
‘‘It’s not for winter evenings; it’s more for summer,’’ she said. ‘‘It’s papa’s taste; he has so much.’’
He had a good deal, Rosier thought; but some of it was bad. He looked about him; he hardly knew what to say in such a situation. ‘‘Doesn’t Mrs. Osmond care how her rooms are done? Has she no taste?’’ he asked.
‘‘Oh yes, a great deal; but it’s more for literature,’’ said Pansy, ‘‘—and for conversation. But papa cares also for those things: I think he knows everything.’’
Rosier was silent a moment. ‘‘There is one thing I am sure he knows!’’ he broke out presently. ‘‘He knows that when I come here it is, with all respect to him, with all respect to Mrs. Osmond, who is so charming—it is really,’’ said the young man, ‘‘to see you!’’
‘‘To see me?’’ asked Pansy, raising her vaguely troubled eyes.
‘‘To see you; that’s what I come for,’’ Rosier repeated, feeling the intoxication of a rupture with authority. Pansy stood looking at him, simply, intently, openly; a blush was not needed to make her face more modest.
‘‘I thought it was for that,’’ she said.
‘‘And it was not disagreeable to you?’’
‘‘I couldn’t tell; I didn’t know. You never told me,’’ said Pansy.
‘‘I was afraid of offending you.’’
‘‘You don’t offend me,’’ the young girl murmured, smiling as if an angel had kissed her.
‘‘You like me then, Pansy?’’ Rosier asked, very gently, feeling very happy.
‘‘Yes—I like you.’’
They had walked to the chimney-piece, where the big cold Empire clock was perched; they were well within the room, and beyond observation from without. The tone in which she had said these four words seemed to him the very breath of nature, and his only answer could be to take her hand and hold it a moment. Then he raised it to his lips. She submitted, still with her pure, trusting smile, in which there was something ineffably passive. She liked him—she had liked him all the while;
‘‘You are very dear to me,’’ he murmured, trying to believe that there was after all such a thing as hospitality.
She looked a moment at her hand, where he had kissed it. ‘‘Did you say that papa knows?’’
‘‘You told me just now he knows everything.’’
‘‘I think you must make sure,’’ said Pansy.
‘‘Ah, my dear, when once I am sure of you!’’ Rosier murmured in her ear, while she turned back to the other rooms with a little air of consistency which seemed to imply that their appeal should be immediate.
The other rooms meanwhile had become conscious of the arrival of Madame Merle, who, wherever she went, produced an impression when she entered. How she did it the most attentive spectator could not have told you; for she neither spoke loud, nor laughed profusely, nor moved rapidly, nor dressed with splendour, nor appealed in any appreciable manner to the audience. Large, fair, smiling, serene, there was something in her very tranquillity that diffused itself, and when people looked round it was because of a sudden quiet. On this occasion she had done the quietest thing she could do; after embracing Mrs. Osmond, which was more striking, she had sat down on a small sofa to commune with the master of the house. There was a brief exchange of commonplaces between these two—they always paid, in public, a certain formal tribute to the commonplace—and then Madame Merle, whose eyes had been wandering, asked if little Mr. Rosier had come this evening.
‘‘He came nearly an hour ago—but he has disappeared,’’ Osmond said.