LITMIR.BIZ

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to see what injury could arise to her from the visit she presently paid to Mr. Osmond’s hill-top. Nothing could have been more charming than this occasion — a soft afternoon in the full maturity of the Tuscan spring. The companions drove out of the Roman Gate, beneath the enormous blank superstructure which crowns the fine clear arch of that portal and makes it nakedly impressive, and wound between high-walled lanes into which the wealth of blossoming orchards over-drooped and flung a fragrance, until they reached the small superurban piazza, of crooked shape, where the long brown wall of the villa occupied in part by Mr. Osmond formed a principal, or at least a very imposing, object. Isabel went with her friend through a wide, high court, where a clear shadow rested below and a pair of light-arched galleries, facing each other above, caught the upper sunshine upon their slim columns and the flowering plants in which they were dressed. There was something grave and strong in the place; it looked somehow as if, once you were in, you would need an act of energy to get out. For Isabel, however, there was of course as yet no thought of getting out, but only of advancing. Mr. Osmond met her in the cold ante-chamber — it was cold even in the month of May — and ushered her, with her conductress, into the apartment to which we have already been introduced. Madame Merle was in front, and while Isabel lingered a little, talking with him, she went forward familiarly and greeted two persons who were seated in the saloon. One of these was little Pansy, on whom she bestowed a kiss; the other was a lady whom Mr. Osmond indicated to Isabel as his sister, the Countess Gemini. “And that’s my little girl,” he said, “who has just come out of her convent.”

      Pansy had on a scant white dress, and her fair hair was neatly arranged in a net; she wore her small shoes tied sandal-fashion about her ankles. She made Isabel a little conventual curtsey and then came to be kissed. The Countess Gemini simply nodded without getting up: Isabel could see she was a woman of high fashion. She was thin and dark and not at all pretty, having features that suggested some tropical bird — a long beak-like nose, small, quickly-moving eyes and a mouth and chin that receded extremely. Her expression, however, thanks to various intensities of emphasis and wonder, of horror and joy, was not inhuman, and, as regards her appearance, it was plain she understood herself and made the most of her points. Her attire, voluminous and delicate, bristling with elegance, had the look of shimmering plumage, and her attitudes were as light and sudden as those of a creature who perched upon twigs. She had a great deal of manner; Isabel, who had never known any one with so much manner, immediately classed her as the most affected of women. She remembered that Ralph had not recommended her as an acquaintance; but she was ready to acknowledge that to a casual view the Countess Gemini revealed no depths. Her demonstrations suggested the violent waving of some flag of general truce — white silk with fluttering streamers.

      “You’ll believe I’m glad to see you when I tell you it’s only because I knew you were to be here that I came myself. I don’t come and see my brother — I make him come and see me. This hill of his is impossible — I don’t see what possesses him. Really, Osmond, you’ll be the ruin of my horses some day, and if it hurts them you’ll have to give me another pair. I heard them wheezing to-day; I assure you I did. It’s very disagreeable to hear one’s horses wheezing when one’s sitting in the carriage; it sounds too as if they weren’t what they should be. But I’ve always had good horses; whatever else I may have lacked I’ve always managed that. My husband doesn’t know much, but I think he knows a horse. In general Italians don’t, but my husband goes in, according to his poor light, for everything English. My horses are English — so it’s all the greater pity they should be ruined. I must tell you,” she went on, directly addressing Isabel, “that Osmond doesn’t often invite me; I don’t think he likes to have me. It was quite my own idea, coming to-day. I like to see new people, and I’m sure you’re very new. But don’t sit there; that chair’s not what it looks. There are some very good seats here, but there are also some horrors.”

      These remarks were delivered with a series of little jerks and pecks, of roulades of shrillness, and in an accent that was as some fond recall of good English, or rather of good American, in adversity.

      “I don’t like to have you, my dear?” said her brother. “I’m sure you’re invaluable.”

      “I don’t see any horrors anywhere,” Isabel returned, looking about her. “Everything seems to me beautiful and precious.”

      “I’ve a few good things,” Mr. Osmond allowed; “indeed I’ve nothing very bad. But I’ve not what I should have liked.”

      He stood there a little awkwardly, smiling and glancing about; his manner was an odd mixture of the detached and the involved. He seemed to hint that nothing but the right “values” was of any consequence. Isabel made a rapid induction: perfect simplicity was not the badge of his family. Even the little girl from the convent, who, in her prim white dress, with her small submissive face and her hands locked before her, stood there as if she were about to partake of her first communion, even Mr. Osmond’s diminutive daughter had a kind of finish that was not entirely artless.

      “You’d have liked a few things from the Uffzi and the Pitti — that’s what you’d have liked,” said Madame Merle.

      “Poor Osmond, with his old curtains and crucifixes!” the Countess Gemini exclaimed: she appeared to call her brother only by his family-name. Her ejaculation had no particular object; she smiled at Isabel as she made it and looked at her from head to foot.

      Her brother had not heard her; he seemed to be thinking what he could say to Isabel. “Won’t you have some tea?— you must be very tired,” he at last bethought himself of remarking.

      “No indeed, I’m not tired; what have I done to tire me?” Isabel felt a certain need of being very direct, of pretending to nothing; there was something in the air, in her general impression of things — she could hardly have said what it was — that deprived her of all disposition to put herself forward. The place, the occasion, the combination of people, signified more than lay on the surface; she would try to understand — she would not simply utter graceful platitudes. Poor Isabel was doubtless not aware that many women would have uttered graceful platitudes to cover the working of their observation. It must be confessed that her pride was a trifle alarmed. A man she had heard spoken of in terms that excited interest and who was evidently capable of distinguishing himself, had invited her, a young lady not lavish of her favours, to come to his house. Now that she had done so the burden of the entertainment rested naturally on his wit. Isabel was not rendered less observant, and for the moment, we judge, she was not rendered more indulgent, by perceiving that Mr. Osmond carried his burden less complacently than might have been expected. “What a fool I was to have let myself so needlessly in —!” she could fancy his exclaiming to himself.

      “You’ll be tired when you go home, if he shows you all his bibelots and gives you a lecture on each,” said the Countess Gemini.

      “I’m not afraid of that; but if I’m tired I shall at least have learned something.”

      “Very little, I suspect. But my sister’s dreadfully afraid of learning anything,” said Mr. Osmond.

      “Oh, I confess to that; I don’t want to know anything more — I know too much already. The more you know the more unhappy you are.”

      “You should not undervalue knowledge before Pansy, who has not finished her education,” Madame Merle interposed with a smile. “Pansy will never know any harm,” said the child’s father. “Pansy’s a little convent-flower.”

      “Oh, the convents, the convents!” cried the Countess with a flutter of her ruffles. “Speak to me of the convents! You may learn anything there; I’m a convent-flower myself. I don’t pretend to be good, but the nuns do. Don’t you see what I mean?” she went on, appealing to Isabel.

      Isabel was not sure she saw, and she answered that she was very bad at following arguments. The Countess then declared that she herself detested arguments, but that this was her brother’s taste — he would always discuss. “For me,” she said, “one should like a thing or one shouldn’t; one can’t like everything, of course. But one shouldn’t attempt to reason it out — you never know where it may lead you. There are some very good feelings that may have bad reasons, don’t

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