But you really told me very
little; I've often thought so since."
Isabel had thought so too, and sometimes with a certain
satisfaction. But she didn't admit it now-perhaps because she wished
not to appear to exult in it. "You seem to have had an excellent
informant in my aunt," she simply returned.
"She let me know you had declined an offer of marriage from Lord
Warburton, because she was greatly vexed and was full of the
subject. Of course I think you've done better in doing as you did. But
if you wouldn't marry Lord Warburton yourself, make him the reparation
of helping him to marry some one else."
Isabel listened to this with a face that persisted in not reflecting
the bright expressiveness of Madame Merle's. But in a moment she said,
reasonably and gently enough: "I should be very glad indeed if, as
regards Pansy, it could be arranged." Upon which her companion, who
seemed to regard this as a speech of good omen, embraced her more
tenderly than might have been expected and triumphantly withdrew.
CHAPTER 41
Osmond touched on this matter that evening for the first time;
coming very late into the drawing-room, where she was sitting alone.
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