They had spent the evening at home, and Pansy had gone to bed; he
himself had been sitting since dinner in a small apartment in which he
had arranged his books and which he called his study. At ten o'clock
Lord Warburton had come in, as he always did when he knew from
Isabel that she was to be at home; he was going somewhere else and
he sat for half an hour. Isabel, after asking him for news of Ralph,
said very little to him, on purpose; she wished him to talk with her
stepdaughter. She pretended to read; she even went after a little to
the piano; she asked herself if she mightn't leave the room. She had
come little by little to think well of the idea of Pansy's becoming
the wife of the master of beautiful Lockleigh, though at first it
had not presented itself in a manner to excite her enthusiasm.
Madame Merle, that afternoon, had applied the match to an accumulation
of inflammable material. When Isabel was unhappy she always looked
about her-partly from impulse and partly by theory-for some form of
positive exertion. She could never rid herself of the sense that
unhappiness was a state of disease-of suffering as opposed to doing.
Pages:
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724