Touchett's attitude, and of the injury it
offered to habits consecrated by many charming seasons, that Madame
Merle had, after this, chosen to pass many months in England, where
her credit was quite unimpaired. Mrs. Touchett had done her a wrong;
there are some things that can't be forgiven. But Madame Merle
suffered in silence; there was always something exquisite in her
dignity.
Ralph, as I say, had wished to see for himself; but while engaged in
this pursuit he had yet felt afresh what a fool he had been to put the
girl on her guard. He had played the wrong card, and now he had lost
the game. He should see nothing, he should learn nothing; for him
she would always wear a mask. His true line would have been to profess
delight in her union, so that later, when, as Ralph phrased it, the
bottom should fall out of it, she might have the pleasure of saying to
him that he had been a goose. He would gladly have consented to pass
for a goose in order to know Isabel's real situation. At present,
however, she neither taunted him with his fallacies nor pretended that
her own confidence was justified; if she wore a mask it completely
covered her face.
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