unprecedentedly virtuous? It's only on those conditions that I care to
make her acquaintance. You know I asked you some time ago never to speak
to me of a creature who shouldn't correspond to that description. I know
plenty of dingy people; I don't want to know any more."

"Miss Archer isn't dingy; she's as bright as the morning. She
corresponds to your description; it's for that I wish you to know her.
She fills all your requirements."

"More or less, of course."

"No; quite literally. She's beautiful, accomplished, generous and, for
an American, well-born. She's also very clever and very amiable, and she
has a handsome fortune."

Mr. Osmond listened to this in silence, appearing to turn it over in his
mind with his eyes on his informant. "What do you want to do with her?"
he asked at last.

"What you see. Put her in your way."

"Isn't she meant for something better than that?"

"I don't pretend to know what people are meant for," said Madame Merle.
"I only know what I can do with them."

"I'm sorry for Miss Archer!" Osmond declared.

Madame Merle got up. "If that's a beginning of interest in her I take
note of it."

The two stood there face to face; she settled her mantilla, looking down
at it as she did so. "You're looking very well," Osmond repeated still
less relevantly than before. "You have some idea. You're never so well
as when you've got an idea; they're always becoming to you."

In the manner and tone of these two persons, on first meeting at any
juncture, and especially when they met in the presence of others, was
something indirect and circumspect, as if they had approached each other
obliquely and addressed each other by implication. The effect of
each appeared to be to intensify to an appreciable degree the
self-consciousness of the other. Madame Merle of course carried off any
embarrassment better than her friend; but even Madame Merle had not
on this occasion the form she would have liked to have--the perfect
self-possession she would have wished to wear for her host. The point to
be made is, however, that at a certain moment the element between them,
whatever it was, always levelled itself and left them more closely
face to face than either ever was with any one else. This was what had
happened now. They stood there knowing each other well and each on the
whole willing to accept the satisfaction of knowing as a compensation
for the inconvenience--whatever it might be--of being known. "I