It was the whole creature-it was a sort of
genius. Pansy had no pride to interfere with it, and though she was
constantly extending her conquests she took no credit for them. The
two were constantly together; Mrs. Osmond was rarely seen without
her stepdaughter. Isabel liked her company; it had the effect of one's
carrying a nosegay composed all of the same flower. And then not to
neglect Pansy, not under any provocation to neglect her-this she had
made an article of religion. The young girl had every appearance of
being happier in Isabel's society than in that of any one save her
father, whom she admired with an intensity justified by the fact that,
as paternity was an exquisite pleasure to Gilbert Osmond, he had
always been luxuriously mild. Isabel knew how Pansy liked to be with
her and how she studied the means of pleasing her. She had decided
that the best way of pleasing her was negative, and consisted in not
giving her trouble-a conviction which certainly could have had no
reference to trouble already existing. She was therefore ingeniously
passive and almost imaginatively docile; she was careful even to
moderate the eagerness with which she assented to Isabel's
propositions and which might have implied that she could have
thought otherwise.
Pages:
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711