If she had
troubles she must keep them to herself, and if life was difficult it
would not make it easier to confess herself beaten. Madame Merle was
doubtless of great use to herself and an ornament to any circle; but
was she-would she be-of use to others in periods of refined
embarrassment? The best way to profit by her friend-this indeed Isabel
had always thought-was to imitate her, to be as firm and bright as
she. She recognized no embarrassments, and Isabel, considering this
fact, determined for the fiftieth time to brush aside her own. It
seemed to her too, on the renewal of an intercourse which had
virtually been interrupted, that her old ally was different, was
almost detached-pushing to the extreme a certain rather artificial
fear of being indiscreet. Ralph Touchett, we know, had been of the
opinion that she was prone to exaggeration, to forcing the note-was
apt, in the vulgar phrase, to overdo it. Isabel had never admitted
this charge-had never indeed quite understood it; Madame Merle's
conduct, to her perception, always bore the stamp of good taste, was
always "quiet." But in this matter of not wishing to intrude upon
the inner life of the Osmond family it at last occurred to our young
woman that she overdid a little.
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