e," she murmured at last. "I'm frightened
at the abyss into which I shall have cast her."

He took it almost gaily. "You can't draw back--you've gone too far."

"Very good; but you must do the rest yourself."

"I shall do it," said Gilbert Osmond.

Madame Merle remained silent and he changed his place again; but when
she rose to go he also took leave. Mrs. Touchett's victoria was awaiting
her guest in the court, and after he had helped his friend into it he
stood there detaining her. "You're very indiscreet," she said rather
wearily; "you shouldn't have moved when I did."

He had taken off his hat; he passed his hand over his forehead. "I
always forget; I'm out of the habit."

"You're quite unfathomable," she repeated, glancing up at the windows of
the house, a modern structure in the new part of the town.

He paid no heed to this remark, but spoke in his own sense. "She's
really very charming. I've scarcely known any one more graceful."

"It does me good to hear you say that. The better you like her the
better for me."

"I like her very much. She's all you described her, and into the bargain
capable, I feel, of great devotion. She has only one fault."

"What's that?"

"Too many ideas."

"I warned you she was clever."

"Fortunately they're very bad ones," said Osmond.

"Why is that fortunate?"

"Dame, if they must be sacrificed!"

Madame Merle leaned back, looking straight before her; then she spoke to
the coachman. But her friend again detained her. "If I go to Rome what
shall I do with Pansy?"

"I'll go and see her," said Madame Merle.

CHAPTER XXVII

I may not attempt to report in its fulness our young woman's response
to the deep appeal of Rome, to analyse her feelings as she trod the
pavement of the Forum or to number her pulsations as she crossed the
threshold of Saint Peter's. It is enough to say that her impression was
such as might have been expected of a person of her freshness and her
eagerness. She had always been fond of history, and here was history
in the stones of the street and the atoms of the sunshine. She had an
imagination that kindled at the mention of great deeds, and wherever she
turned some great deed had been acted. These things strongly moved her,
but moved her all inwardly. It seemed to her companions that she talked
less than usual, and Ralph Touchett, when he appeared to be looking
listlessly and awkwardly over her head, was really dropping on her an
intensity o