THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 355 derive from it would be perfectly insincere. Tt might feed her sense of- bitterness, but it would not loosen her bonds. Tt was impossible to pretend that she had not acted with her eyes open ; if ever a girl was a free agent, she had been. A girl in love was doubtless not a free agent ; but the sole source of her mistake had been within herself. There had been no plot, no snare ; she had looked, and considered, and chosen. When a woman had made such a mistake, there was only one way to repair it to accept it. One folly was enough, especially when it was to last for ever ; a second one would not much set it off. In this vow of reticence there was a certain nobleness which kept Isabel going ; but Madame Merle had been right, for all that, in taking her precautions. One day, about a month after Ralph Touchett's arrival in Rome, Isabel came back from a walk with Pansy. It was not only a part of her general determination to be just that she was at present very thankful for Pansy. It was a part of her tender- ness for things that were pure and weak. Pansy was dear to her, and there was nothing in her life so much as it should be as the young girl's attachment and the pleasantness of feeling it. It was like a soft presence like a small hand in her own ; on Pansy's part it was more than an affection it was a kind of faith. On her own side her sense of Pansy's dependence was more than a pleasure ; it operated as a command, as a definite reason when motives threatened to fail her. She had said to herself that we must take our duty where we find it, and that we must look for it as much as possible. Pansy's sympathy was a kind of admonition ; it seemed to say that here was an oppor- tunity. An opportunity for what, Isabel could hardly have said ; in general, to be more for the child than the child was able to be for herself. Isabel could have smiled, in these days, to remember that her little companion had once been ambiguous ; for she now perceived that Pansy's ambiguities were simply her own grossness of vision. She had been unable to believe that any one could Sare so much so extraordinarily much to please. But since then she had seen this delicate faculty in operation, and she knew what to think of it. It was the whole creature it was a sort of genius. Pansy had no pride to interfere with it, and though she was constantly extending her conquests she took no credit for them. The two were constantly together ; Mrs. Osmond was rarely seen without her step-daughter. Isabel liked her company ; it had the effect of one's carrying a nosegay composed all of the same flower. And then not to neglect Pansy not under any provocation to neglect her ; this she had AA 2
