THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 479 to pay his court to you. It was at his house in Florence ; do you remember that afternoon when she brought you there and we had tea in the garden ? She let me know then that if I should tell tales, two could play at that game. She pretends there is a good deal more to tell about me than about her. It would be an interesting comparison ! I don't care a fig what she may say, simply because I know you don't care a fig. You can't trouble your head about me less than you do already. So she may take her revenge as she chooses ; I don't think she will frighten you very much. Her great idea has been to be tremen- dously irreproachable a kind of full-blown lily the incarna- tion of propriety. She has always worshipped that god. There should be no scandal about Caesar's wife, you know ; and, as I say, she has always hoped to marry Caesar. That was one reason she wouldn't marry Osmond ; the fear that on seeing her with Pansy people would put things together would even see a resemblance. She has had a terror lest the mother should betray herself. She has been awfully careful ; the mother has never done so." " Yes, yes, the mother has done so," said Isabel, who had listened to all this with a face of deepening dreariness. " She betrayed herself to me the other day, though I didn't recognise her. There appeared to have been a chance of Pansy's making a great marriage, and in her disappointment at its not coming off she almost dropped the mask." " Ah, that's where she would stumble ! " cried the Countess. " She has failed so dreadfully herself that she is determined her daughter shall make it up." Isabel started at the words " her daughter," which the Countess threw off so familiarly. "It seems very wonderful," she murmured ; and in this bewildering impression she had almost lost her sense of being personally touched by the story. " Now don't go and turn against the poor innocent child ! " the Countess went on. " She is very nice, in spite of her lamentable parentage. I have liked Pansy, not because she was hers but because she had become yours." " Yes, she has become mine. And how the poor woman must have suffered at seeing me ! " Isabel exclaimed, flushing quickly at the thought. " I don't believe she has suffered ; on the contrary, she has enjoyed. Osmond's marriage has given Pansy a great lift. Before that she lived in a hole. And do you know what the mother thought? That you might take such a fancy to the child that you would do something for her. Osmond, of course
