adual, subtle, successful conversion of it to which she owed both what
pleased her in him and what mystified her. If he had suddenly asked her
what she thought of the Countess Gemini, that was doubtless a proof that
he was interested in her; it could scarcely be as a help to knowledge
of his own sister. That he should be so interested showed an enquiring
mind; but it was a little singular he should sacrifice his fraternal
feeling to his curiosity. This was the most eccentric thing he had done.

There were two other rooms, beyond the one in which she had been
received, equally full of romantic objects, and in these apartments
Isabel spent a quarter of an hour. Everything was in the last degree
curious and precious, and Mr. Osmond continued to be the kindest of
ciceroni as he led her from one fine piece to another and still held his
little girl by the hand. His kindness almost surprised our young friend,
who wondered why he should take so much trouble for her; and she was
oppressed at last with the accumulation of beauty and knowledge to which
she found herself introduced. There was enough for the present; she had
ceased to attend to what he said; she listened to him with attentive
eyes, but was not thinking of what he told her. He probably thought
her quicker, cleverer in every way, more prepared, than she was. Madame
Merle would have pleasantly exaggerated; which was a pity, because in
the end he would be sure to find out, and then perhaps even her real
intelligence wouldn't reconcile him to his mistake. A part of Isabel's
fatigue came from the effort to appear as intelligent as she believed
Madame Merle had described her, and from the fear (very unusual with
her) of exposing--not her ignorance; for that she cared comparatively
little--but her possible grossness of perception. It would have annoyed
her to express a liking for something he, in his superior enlightenment,
would think she oughtn't to like; or to pass by something at which the
truly initiated mind would arrest itself. She had no wish to fall into
that grotesqueness--in which she had seen women (and it was a warning)
serenely, yet ignobly, flounder. She was very careful therefore as to
what she said, as to what she noticed or failed to notice; more careful
than she had ever been before.

They came back into the first of the rooms, where the tea had been
served; but as the two other ladies were still on the terrace, and as
Isabel had not yet been made acquain