Madame Merle reflected."Don't put it into her head.The thing would be to ask Mr.Osmond.""I can't do that," said Mrs.Touchett."I won't have him enquire of me- as he perfectly may with that air of his, given Isabel's situation- what business it is of mine.""I'll ask him myself," Madame Merle bravely declared.
"But what business- for him- is it of yours?""It's being none whatever is just why I can afford to speak.It's so much less my business than any one's else that he can put me off with anything he chooses.But it will be by the way he does this that I shall know.""Pray let me hear then," said Mrs.Touchett, "of the fruits of your penetration.If I can't speak to him, however, at least I can speak to Isabel."Her companion sounded at this the note of warning."Don't be too quick with her.Don't inflame her imagination.""I never did anything in my life to any one's imagination.But I'm always sure of her doing something- well, not of my kind.""No, you wouldn't like this," Madame Merle observed without the point of interrogation.
"Why in the world should I, pray? Mr.Osmond has nothing the least solid to offer."Again Madame Merle was silent while her thoughtful smile drew up her mouth even more charmingly than usual toward the left corner."Let us distinguish.Gilbert Osmond's certainly not the first comer.He's a man who in favourable conditions might very well make a great impression.He has made a great impression, to my knowledge, more than once.""Don't tell me about his probably quite cold-blooded love-affairs;they're nothing to me!" Mrs.Touchett cried."What you say's precisely why I wish he would cease his visits.He has nothing in the world that I know of but a dozen or two of early masters and a more or less pert little daughter.""The early masters are now worth a good deal of money," said Madame Merle, "and the daughter's a very young and very innocent and very harmless person.""In other words she's an insipid little chit.Is that what you mean?
Having no fortune she can't hope to marry as they marry here; so that Isabel will have to furnish her either with a maintenance or with a dowry.""Isabel probably wouldn't object to being kind to her.I think she likes the poor child.""Another reason then for Mr.Osmond's stopping at home! Otherwise, a week hence, we shall have my niece arriving at the conviction that her mission in life's to prove that a stepmother may sacrifice herself-and that, to prove it, she must first become one.""She would make a charming stepmother," smiled Madame Merle; "but I quite agree with you that she had better not decide upon her mission too hastily.Changing the form of one's mission's almost as difficult as changing the shape of one's nose: there they are, each, in the middle of one's face and one's character- one has to begin too far back.But I'll investigate and report to you."All this went on quite over Isabel's head; she had no suspicions that her relations with Mr.Osmond were being discussed.Madame Merle had said nothing to put her on her guard; she alluded no more pointedly to him than to the other gentlemen of Florence, native and foreign, who now arrived in considerable numbers to pay their respects to Miss Archer's aunt.Isabel thought him interesting- she came back to that; she liked so to think of him.She had carried away an image from her visit to his hill-top which her subsequent knowledge of him did nothing to efface and which put on for her a particular harmony with other supposed and divined things, histories within histories:
