ut all the same the girl had taken fright; the
impression her father desired to make would evidently be sharp enough.
The old Protestant tradition had never faded from Isabel's imagination,
and as her thoughts attached themselves to this striking example of
her husband's genius--she sat looking, like him, at the basket of
flowers--poor little Pansy became the heroine of a tragedy. Osmond
wished it to be known that he shrank from nothing, and his wife found it
hard to pretend to eat her dinner. There was a certain relief presently,
in hearing the high, strained voice of her sister-in-law. The Countess
too, apparently, had been thinking the thing out, but had arrived at a
different conclusion from Isabel.

"It's very absurd, my dear Osmond," she said, "to invent so many pretty
reasons for poor Pansy's banishment. Why, don't you say at once that you
want to get her out of my way? Haven't you discovered that I think very
well of Mr. Rosier? I do indeed; he seems to me simpaticissimo. He has
made me believe in true love; I never did before! Of course you've
made up your mind that with those convictions I'm dreadful company for
Pansy."

Osmond took a sip of a glass of wine; he looked perfectly good-humoured.
"My dear Amy," he answered, smiling as if he were uttering a piece
of gallantry, "I don't know anything about your convictions, but if
I suspected that they interfere with mine it would be much simpler to
banish YOU."

CHAPTER LI

The Countess was not banished, but she felt the insecurity of her tenure
of her brother's hospitality. A week after this incident Isabel received
a telegram from England, dated from Gardencourt and bearing the stamp of
Mrs. Touchett's authorship. "Ralph cannot last many days," it ran, "and
if convenient would like to see you. Wishes me to say that you must come
only if you've not other duties. Say, for myself, that you used to talk
a good deal about your duty and to wonder what it was; shall be curious
to see whether you've found it out. Ralph is really dying, and there's
no other company." Isabel was prepared for this news, having received
from Henrietta Stackpole a detailed account of her journey to England
with her appreciative patient. Ralph had arrived more dead than alive,
but she had managed to convey him to Gardencourt, where he had taken to
his bed, which, as Miss Stackpole wrote, he evidently would never leave
again. She added that she had really had two patients on her hands