"
"Ah," exclaimed Madame Merle, "I've great faults, but I don't
think that's one of them; it certainly isn't the greatest. I came into
the world in the Brooklyn navy-yard. My father was a high officer in
the United States Navy, and had a post- a post of responsibility- in
that establishment at the time. I suppose I ought to love the sea, but
I hate it. That's why I don't return to America. I love the land;
the great thing is to love something."
Isabel, as a dispassionate witness, had not been struck with the
force of Mrs. Touchett's characterization of her visitor, who had an
expressive, communicative, responsive face, by no means of the sort
which, to Isabel's mind, suggested a secretive disposition. It was a
face that told of an amplitude of nature and of quick and free motions
and, though it had no regular beauty, was in the highest degree
engaging and attaching. Madame Merle was a tall, fair, smooth woman;
everything in her person was round and replete, though without those
accumulations which suggest heaviness. Her features were thick but
in perfect proportion and harmony, and her complexion had a healthy
clearness. Her grey eyes were small but full of light and incapable of
stupidity- incapable, according to some people, even of tears; she had
a liberal, full-rimmed mouth which when she smiled drew itself
upward to the left side in a manner that most people thought very odd,
some very affected and a few very graceful.
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