ad simply answered that she supposed she was
making the best of it. Mrs. Touchett had not the imagination that
communes with the unseen, and she now pretended to no intimacy with
her niece, whom she rarely encountered. This young woman appeared to
be living in a sufficiently honourable way, but Mrs. Touchett still
remained of the opinion that her marriage had been a shabby affair. It
had given her no pleasure to think of Isabel's establishment, which she
was sure was a very lame business. From time to time, in Florence, she
rubbed against the Countess Gemini, doing her best always to minimise
the contact; and the Countess reminded her of Osmond, who made her
think of Isabel. The Countess was less talked of in these days; but Mrs.
Touchett augured no good of that: it only proved how she had been talked
of before. There was a more direct suggestion of Isabel in the person
of Madame Merle; but Madame Merle's relations with Mrs. Touchett had
undergone a perceptible change. Isabel's aunt had told her, without
circumlocution, that she had played too ingenious a part; and Madame
Merle, who never quarrelled with any one, who appeared to think no one
worth it, and who had performed the miracle of living, more or less,
for several years with Mrs. Touchett and showing no symptom of
irritation--Madame Merle now took a very high tone and declared that
this was an accusation from which she couldn't stoop to defend herself.
She added, however (without stooping), that her behaviour had been only
too simple, that she had believed only what she saw, that she saw Isabel
was not eager to marry and Osmond not eager to please (his repeated
visits had been nothing; he was boring himself to death on his hill-top
and he came merely for amusement). Isabel had kept her sentiments to
herself, and her journey to Greece and Egypt had effectually thrown
dust in her companion's eyes. Madame Merle accepted the event--she was
unprepared to think of it as a scandal; but that she had played any part
in it, double or single, was an imputation against which she proudly
protested. It was doubtless in consequence of Mrs. Touchett's attitude,
and of the injury it offered to habits consecrated by many charming
seasons, that Madame Merle had, after this, chosen to pass many months
in England, where her credit was quite unimpaired. Mrs. Touchett had
done her a wrong; there are some things that can't be forgiven. But
Madame Merle suffered in silence; there was alway