“If I don’t know you I know nothing,” smiled Madame Merle. “You’ve the feeling of complete success.”
“No, I shall not have that till I’ve made you stop judging me.”
“I did that long ago. I speak from old knowledge. But you express yourself more too.”
Osmond just hung fire. “I wish you’d express yourself less!”
“You wish to condemn me to silence? Remember that I’ve never been a chatterbox. At any rate there are three or four things I should like to say to you first. Your wife doesn’t know what to do with herself,” she went on with a change of tone.
“Pardon me; she knows perfectly. She has a line sharply drawn. She means to carry out her ideas.”
“Her ideas to-day must be remarkable.”
“Certainly they are. She has more of them than ever.”
“She was unable to show me any this morning,” said Madame Merle. “She seemed in a very simple, almost in a stupid, state of mind. She was completely bewildered.”
“You had better say at once that she was pathetic.”