THE PORTEAIT OF A LADY. 207 " I should think she had had enough of the nuns." " If we are going to discuss that matter, she had better go out of the room." " Let her stay," said Madame Merle. " We will talk of something else." " If you like, I won't listen," Pansy suggested, with an appearance of candour which imposed conviction. " You may listen, charming child, because you won't under- stand," her father replied. The child sat down deferentially, near the open door, within sight of the garden, into which she directed her innocent, wistful eyes ; and Mr. Osmond went on, irrelevantly, addressing himself to his other companion. " You are looking particularly well." " I think I always look the same," said Madame Merle. "You always are the same. You don't vary. You are a wonderful woman." "Yes, I think I am." " You sometimes change your mind, however. You told me on your return from England that you would not leave Rome again for the present." " I am pleased that you remember so well what I say. That was my intention. But I have come to Florence to meet some friends who have lately arrived, and as to whose movements I was at that time uncertain." " That reason is characteristic. You are always doing some- thing for your friends." Madame Merle looked straight at her interlocutor, smiling. " It is less characteristic than your comment upon it which is perfectly insincere. I don't, however, make a crime of that," she added, " because if you don't believe what you say there is no reason why you should. I don't ruin myself for my friends ; I don't deserve your praise. I care greatly for myself." "Exactly; but yourself includes so many other selves so much of everything. I never knew a person whose life touched so many other lives." " What do you call one's life? " asked Madame Merle. "One's appearance, one's movements, one's engagements, one's society?"
- ' I call your life your ambitions," said Osmond.
Madame Merle looked a moment at Pansy. "I wonder whether she understands that," she murmured. " You see she can't stay with us ! " And Pansy's father gave a rather joyless smile. " Go into the garden, ma bonne, and pluck a flower or two for Madame Merle," he went on, in French.
