her than ever from having folded her wings. She entered the room
with a flutter through the air and kissed Isabel first on the forehead
and then on each cheek as if according to some ancient prescribed rite.
She drew the visitor to a sofa and, looking at her with a variety of
turns of the head, began to talk very much as if, seated brush in hand
before an easel, she were applying a series of considered touches to
a composition of figures already sketched in. "If you expect me to
congratulate you I must beg you to excuse me. I don't suppose you care
if I do or not; I believe you're supposed not to care--through being so
clever--for all sorts of ordinary things. But I care myself if I tell
fibs; I never tell them unless there's something rather good to be
gained. I don't see what's to be gained with you--especially as you
wouldn't believe me. I don't make professions any more than I make paper
flowers or flouncey lampshades--I don't know how. My lampshades would be
sure to take fire, my roses and my fibs to be larger than life. I'm very
glad for my own sake that you're to marry Osmond; but I won't pretend
I'm glad for yours. You're very brilliant--you know that's the way
you're always spoken of; you're an heiress and very good-looking and
original, not banal; so it's a good thing to have you in the family.
Our family's very good, you know; Osmond will have told you that; and
my mother was rather distinguished--she was called the American Corinne.
But we're dreadfully fallen, I think, and perhaps you'll pick us up.
I've great confidence in you; there are ever so many things I want to
talk to you about. I never congratulate any girl on marrying; I think
they ought to make it somehow not quite so awful a steel trap. I suppose
Pansy oughtn't to hear all this; but that's what she has come to me
for--to acquire the tone of society. There's no harm in her knowing what
horrors she may be in for. When first I got an idea that my brother had
designs on you I thought of writing to you, to recommend you, in the
strongest terms, not to listen to him. Then I thought it would be
disloyal, and I hate anything of that kind. Besides, as I say, I was
enchanted for myself; and after all I'm very selfish. By the way, you
won't respect me, not one little mite, and we shall never be intimate.
I should like it, but you won't. Some day, all the same, we shall be
better friends than you will believe at first. My husband will come and
see you, though