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 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.”