Pansy answered. "He has not much
pleasure; he's rather a sad man."

Isabel listened to this assertion with an interest which she felt it
almost a torment to be obliged to conceal. It was her pride that obliged
her, and a certain sense of decency; there were still other things in
her head which she felt a strong impulse, instantly checked, to say
to Pansy about her father; there were things it would have given her
pleasure to hear the child, to make the child, say. But she no sooner
became conscious of these things than her imagination was hushed with
horror at the idea of taking advantage of the little girl--it was of
this she would have accused herself--and of exhaling into that air where
he might still have a subtle sense for it any breath of her charmed
state. She had come--she had come; but she had stayed only an hour. She
rose quickly from the music-stool; even then, however, she lingered a
moment, still holding her small companion, drawing the child's sweet
slimness closer and looking down at her almost in envy. She was obliged
to confess it to herself--she would have taken a passionate pleasure in
talking of Gilbert Osmond to this innocent, diminutive creature who
was so near him. But she said no other word; she only kissed Pansy once
again. They went together through the vestibule, to the door that
opened on the court; and there her young hostess stopped, looking rather
wistfully beyond. "I may go no further. I've promised papa not to pass
this door."

"You're right to obey him; he'll never ask you anything unreasonable."

"I shall always obey him. But when will you come again?"

"Not for a long time, I'm afraid."

"As soon as you can, I hope. I'm only a little girl," said Pansy, "but
I shall always expect you." And the small figure stood in the high, dark
doorway, watching Isabel cross the clear, grey court and disappear into
the brightness beyond the big portone, which gave a wider dazzle as it
opened.

CHAPTER XXXI

Isabel came back to Florence, but only after several months; an interval
sufficiently replete with incident. It is not, however, during this
interval that we are closely concerned with her; our attention is
engaged again on a certain day in the late spring-time, shortly after
her return to Palazzo Crescentini and a year from the date of the
incidents just narrated. She was alone on this occasion, in one of the
smaller of the numerous rooms devoted by Mrs. Touchett to social uses,
and