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"I'm glad, after all, that you've told me," Madame Merle went on. "Leave it to me a little; I think I
can help you."
"I said you were the person to come to!" her visitor cried with prompt elation.
"You were very clever," Madame Merle returned more dryly. "When I say I can help you I mean
once assuming your cause to be good. Let us think a little if it is."
"I'm awfully decent, you know," said Rosier earnestly. "I won't say I've no faults, but I'll say I've
no vices."
"All that's negative, and it always depends, also, on what people call vices. What's the positive
side? What's the virtuous? What have you got besides your Spanish lace and your Dresden
teacups?"
"I've a comfortable little fortune--about forty thousand francs a year. With the talent I have for
arranging, we can live beautifully on such an income."
"Beautifully, no. Sufficiently, yes. Even that depends on where you live."
"Well, in Paris. I would undertake it in Paris."
Madame Merle's mouth rose to the left. "It wouldn't be famous; you'd have to make use of the
teacups, and they'd get broken."
"We don't want to be famous. If Miss Osmond should have everything pretty it would be enough.
When one's as pretty as she one can afford--well, quite cheap faience. She ought never to wear
anything but muslin--without the sprig," said Rosier reflectively.
"Wouldn't you even allow her the sprig? She'd be much obliged to you at any rate for that theory."
"It's the correct one, I assure you; and I'm sure she'd enter into it. She understands all that; that's
why I love her."
"She's a very good little girl, and most tidy--also extremely graceful. But her father, to the best of
my belief, can give her nothing."
Rosier scarce demurred. "I don't in the least desire that he should. But I may remark, all the same,
that he lives like a rich man."
"The money's his wife's; she brought him a large fortune."
"Mrs. Osmond then is very fond of her stepdaughter; she may do something."
"For a love-sick swain you have your eyes about you!" Madame Merle exclaimed with a laugh.
"I esteem a dot very much. I can do without it, but I esteem it."
"Mrs. Osmond," Madame Merle went on, "will probably prefer to keep her money for her own
children."
"Her own children? Surely she has none."
"She may have yet. She had a poor little boy, who died two years ago, six months after his birth.
Others therefore may come."
"I hope they will, if it will make her happy. She's a splendid woman."
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Madame Merle failed to burst into speech. "Ah, about her there's much to be said. Splendid as you
like! We've not exactly made out that you're a parti. The absence of vices is hardly a source of
income.
"Pardon me, I think it may be," said Rosier quite lucidly.
"You'll be a touching couple, living on your innocence!"
"I think you underrate me."
"You're not so innocent as that? Seriously," said Madame Merle, "of course forty thousand francs a
year and a nice character are a combination to be considered. I don't say it's to be jumped at, but
there might be a worse offer. Mr. Osmond, however, will probably incline to believe he can do
better."
"HE can do so perhaps; but what can his daughter do? She can't do better than marry the man she
loves. For she does, you know," Rosier added eagerly.
"She does--I know it."
"Ah," cried the young man, "I said you were the person to come to."
"But I don't know how you know it, if you haven't asked her," Madame Merle went on.
"In such a case there's no need of asking and telling; as you say, we're an innocent couple. How did
YOU know it?"
"I who am not innocent? By being very crafty. Leave it to me; I'll find out for you."
Rosier got up and stood smoothing his hat. "You say that rather coldly. Don't simply find out how
it is, but try to make it as it should be."
"I'll do my best. I'll try to make the most of your advantages."
"Thank you so very much. Meanwhile then I'll say a word to Mrs. Osmond."
"Gardez-vous-en bien!" And Madame Merle was on her feet. "Don't set her going, or you'll spoil
everything."
Rosier gazed into his hat; he wondered whether his hostess HAD been after all the right person to
come to. "I don't think I understand you. I'm an old friend of Mrs. Osmond, and I think she would
like me to succeed."
"Be an old friend as much as you like; the more old friends she has the better, for she doesn't get
on very well with some of her new. But don't for the present try to make her take up the cudgels
for you. Her husband may have other views, and, as a person who wishes her well, I advise you not
to multiply points of difference between them."
Poor Rosier's face assumed an expression of alarm; a suit for the hand of Pansy Osmond was even
a more complicated business than his taste for proper transitions had allowed. But the extreme
good sense which he concealed under a surface suggesting that of a careful owner's "best set" came
to his assistance. "I don't see that I'm bound to consider Mr. Osmond so very much!" he exclaimed.
"No, but you should consider HER. You say you're an old friend. Would you make her suffer?"
"Not for the world."
"Then be very careful, and let the matter alone till I've taken a few soundings."
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"Let the matter alone, dear Madame Merle? Remember that I'm in love."
"Oh, you won't burn up! Why did you come to me, if you're not to heed what I say?"
"You're very kind; I'll be very good," the young man promised. "But I'm afraid Mr. Osmond's
pretty hard," he added in his mild voice as he went to the door.
Madame Merle gave a short laugh. "It has been said before. But his wife isn't easy either."
"Ah, she's a splendid woman!" Ned Rosier repeated, for departure. He resolved that his conduct
should be worthy of an aspirant who was already a model of discretion; but he saw nothing in any
pledge he had given Madame Merle that made it improper he should keep himself in spirits by an
occasional visit to Miss Osmond's home. He reflected constantly on what his adviser had said to
him, and turned over in his mind the impression of her rather circumspect tone. He had gone to her
de confiance, as they put it in Paris; but it was possible he had been precipitate. He found difficulty
in thinking of himself as rash--he had incurred this reproach so rarely; but it certainly was true that
he had known Madame Merle only for the last month, and that his thinking her a delightful woman
was not, when one came to look into it, a reason for assuming that she would be eager to push
Pansy Osmond into his arms, gracefully arranged as these members might be to receive her. She
had indeed shown him benevolence, and she was a person of consideration among the girl's
people, where she had a rather striking appearance (Rosier had more than once wondered how she
managed it) of being intimate without being familiar. But possibly he had exaggerated these
advantages. There was no particular reason why she should take trouble for him; a charming
woman was charming to every one, and Rosier felt rather a fool when he thought of his having
appealed to her on the ground that she had distinguished him. Very likely--though she had
appeared to say it in joke--she was really only thinking of his bibelots. Had it come into her head
that he might offer her two or three of the gems of his collection? If she would only help him to
marry Miss Osmond he would present her with his whole museum. He could hardly say so to her
outright; it would seem too gross a bribe. But he should like her to believe it.
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 by Roman
measure, 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, a pile 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, on a vague survey, 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 overhanging 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 had chosen this habitation for the love of local colour. It
had local colour enough, and though he knew less about architecture than about Limoges enamels
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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 hen, 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
"good things." 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
even better "French" than he in Paris, he was obliged on the spot 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 annexed a number of fine pieces within the
last three years, he had achieved his greatest finds 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
"cash," he said to himself; and the fact that Gilbert Osmond had landed his highest 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 recognition was for the walls of the saloon; there were three or four objects 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 a gentleman whose smile, as he crossed a threshold, always took
everything comfortable for granted.
CHAPTER XXXVII
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 Mrs. Osmond usually sat--though she was not in her most
customary place to-night--and that a circle of more especial intimates gathered about the fire. The
room was flushed with subdued, diffused brightness; it contained the larger things and--almost
always--an odour of flowers. Pansy on this occasion was presumably in the next of the series, 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 persons,
scattered near him, were talking together; but he was not in the conversation; his eyes had an
expression, frequent with them, that seemed to represent them as engaged with objects more worth
their while than the appearances actually thrust upon them. 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, however, took him in; he had never in his life felt himself so efficiently looked at.
"Madame Merle has told him, and he doesn't like it," he privately reasoned. He had hoped Madame
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Merle would be there, but she was not in sight; perhaps she was in one of the other rooms or would
come later. He had never especially delighted in Gilbert Osmond, having a fancy he gave himself
airs. But Rosier was not quickly resentful, and where politeness was concerned had ever a strong
need of being quite in the right. He looked round him and smiled, all without help, and then in a
moment, "I saw a jolly good piece of Capo di Monte to-day," he said.
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're not losing your interest?"
"In old pots and plates? Yes, I'm losing my interest."
Rosier for an instant forgot the delicacy of his position. "You're not thinking of parting with a--a
piece or two?"
"No, I'm 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've nothing I wish to match."
Poor Rosier was aware he had blushed; he was distressed at his want of assurance. "Ah, well, I
have!" was all he could murmur; and he knew 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 high and splendid, as he had said, and yet oh so radiantly
gentle! 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 eye for decorative character, his instinct for authenticity; but also on a sense for
uncatalogued values, for that secret of a "lustre" beyond any recorded losing or rediscovering,
which his devotion to brittle wares had still not disqualified him to recognise. 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'm very regular," he said. "But who should be if I'm not?"
"Yes, I've known you longer than any one here. But we mustn't 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's within six feet of her."
Mrs. Osmond also hesitated. "She's not very lively, and he doesn't like dull people."
"But she's good enough for me? Ah now, that's hard!"
"I only mean that you've ideas for two. And then you're so obliging."
"No, he's not--to me." And Mrs. Osmond vaguely smiled.
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"That's a sign he should be doubly so to other women.
"So I tell him," she said, 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'll abandon her to her fate. The simple truth is I'm 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 damsel 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; he cared little what promises he might break. The fate to which
he had threatened to abandon the damsel 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 doesn't 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's unique--she's 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 enquiry requisite 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 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
could 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.
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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 if
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 so vain a disguise of rose-colour 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 that had been thrown open
and lighted, but that, 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 the very temple of authorised love. Rosier gazed a moment 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 other maiden had left them, making no motion to join a knot of visitors
on the far side of the room. For a little it occurred to him that she was frightened--too frightened
perhaps to move; but a second glance assured him she was not, and he then reflected that she was
too innocent indeed for that. After a supreme hesitation he asked her if 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 didn't 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'll show you." She was not in the least
frightened.
"That's just what I hoped you'd say; you're 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 very 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.
