“I know it. I knew it as soon as you consented to go.”
“You can’t help it—of course not. You would if you could, but you can’t, unfortunately. Unfortunately for me, I mean. I ask nothing—nothing, that is, I shouldn’t. But I do ask one sole satisfaction:—that you tell me—that you tell me—!”
“That I tell you what?”
“Whether I may pity you.”
“Should you like that?” Isabel asked, trying to smile again.
“To pity you? Most assuredly! That at least would be doing something. I’d give my life to it.”
She raised her fan to her face, which it covered all except her eyes. They rested a moment on his. “Don’t give your life to it; but give a thought to it every now and then.” And with that she went back to the Countess Gemini.
CHAPTER XLIX
Madame Merle had not made her appearance at Palazzo Roccanera on the evening of that Thursday of which I have narrated some of the incidents, and Isabel, though she observed her absence, was not surprised by it. Things had passed between them which added no stimulus to sociability, and to appreciate which we must glance a little backward. It has been mentioned that Madame Merle returned from Naples shortly after Lord Warburton had left Rome, and that on her first meeting with Isabel (whom, to do her justice, she came immediately to see) her first utterance had been an enquiry as to the whereabouts of this nobleman, for whom she appeared to hold her dear friend accountable.