This was almost a daily habit with Isabel, who was
fond of a walk and had a swift length of step, though not so swift a
one as on her first coming to Europe. It was not the form of
exercise that Pansy loved best, but she liked it, because she liked
everything; and she moved with a shorter undulation beside her
father's wife, who afterwards, on their return to Rome, paid a tribute
to her preferences by making the circuit of the Pincian or the Villa
Borghese. She had gathered a handful of flowers in a sunny hollow, far
from the walls of Rome, and on reaching Palazzo Roccanera she went
straight to her room, to put them into water. Isabel passed into the
drawing-room, the one she herself usually occupied, the second in
order from the large ante-chamber which was entered from the staircase
and in which even Gilbert Osmond's rich devices had not been able to
correct a look of rather grand nudity. just beyond the threshold of
the drawing-room she stopped short, the reason for her doing so
being that she had received an impression. The impression had, in
strictness, nothing unprecedented; but she felt it as something new,
and the soundlessness of her step gave her time to take in the scene
before she interrupted it.
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