often done. But at least
he should let her know. She wondered whether, since he had wanted her
money, her money would now satisfy him. Would he take her money and let
her go Ah, if Mr. Touchett's great charity would but help her to-day it
would be blessed indeed! It was not slow to occur to her that if Madame
Merle had wished to do Gilbert a service his recognition to her of the
boon must have lost its warmth. What must be his feelings to-day in
regard to his too zealous benefactress, and what expression must they
have found on the part of such a master of irony? It is a singular, but
a characteristic, fact that before Isabel returned from her silent drive
she had broken its silence by the soft exclamation: "Poor, poor Madame
Merle!"

Her compassion would perhaps have been justified if on this same
afternoon she had been concealed behind one of the valuable curtains of
time-softened damask which dressed the interesting little salon of the
lady to whom it referred; the carefully-arranged apartment to which
we once paid a visit in company with the discreet Mr. Rosier. In that
apartment, towards six o'clock, Gilbert Osmond was seated, and his
hostess stood before him as Isabel had seen her stand on an occasion
commemorated in this history with an emphasis appropriate not so much to
its apparent as to its real importance.

"I don't believe you're unhappy; I believe you like it," said Madame
Merle.

"Did I say I was unhappy?" Osmond asked with a face grave enough to
suggest that he might have been.

"No, but you don't say the contrary, as you ought in common gratitude."

"Don't talk about gratitude," he returned dryly. "And don't aggravate
me," he added in a moment.

Madame Merle slowly seated herself, with her arms folded and her white
hands arranged as a support to one of them and an ornament, as it were,
to the other. She looked exquisitely calm but impressively sad. "On
your side, don't try to frighten me. I wonder if you guess some of my
thoughts."

"I trouble about them no more than I can help. I've quite enough of my
own."

"That's because they're so delightful."

Osmond rested his head against the back of his chair and looked at
his companion with a cynical directness which seemed also partly an
expression of fatigue. "You do aggravate me," he remarked in a moment.
"I'm very tired."

"Eh moi donc!" cried Madame Merle.

"With you it's because you fatigue yourself. With me it's not my own
fault."

"Wh