l convictions. We're not stupid, we're
not mean, we're not under bonds to any kind of ignorance or dreariness.
You're remarkably fresh, and I'm remarkably well-seasoned. We've my poor
child to amuse us; we'll try and make up some little life for her. It's
all soft and mellow--it has the Italian colouring."

They made a good many plans, but they left themselves also a good deal
of latitude; it was a matter of course, however, that they should live
for the present in Italy. It was in Italy that they had met, Italy had
been a party to their first impressions of each other, and Italy
should be a party to their happiness. Osmond had the attachment of old
acquaintance and Isabel the stimulus of new, which seemed to assure her
a future at a high level of consciousness of the beautiful. The desire
for unlimited expansion had been succeeded in her soul by the sense
that life was vacant without some private duty that might gather one's
energies to a point. She had told Ralph she had "seen life" in a year
or two and that she was already tired, not of the act of living, but of
that of observing. What had become of all her ardours, her aspirations,
her theories, her high estimate of her independence and her incipient
conviction that she should never marry? These things had been absorbed
in a more primitive need--a need the answer to which brushed away
numberless questions, yet gratified infinite desires. It simplified the
situation at a stroke, it came down from above like the light of the
stars, and it needed no explanation. There was explanation enough in the
fact that he was her lover, her own, and that she should be able to be
of use to him. She could surrender to him with a kind of humility, she
could marry him with a kind of pride; she was not only taking, she was
giving.

He brought Pansy with him two or three times to the Cascine--Pansy who
was very little taller than a year before, and not much older. That she
would always be a child was the conviction expressed by her father, who
held her by the hand when she was in her sixteenth year and told her to
go and play while he sat down a little with the pretty lady. Pansy wore
a short dress and a long coat; her hat always seemed too big for her.
She found pleasure in walking off, with quick, short steps, to the
end of the alley, and then in walking back with a smile that seemed an
appeal for approbation. Isabel approved in abundance, and the abundance
had the personal touch tha