It was
very tiresome she should be so sure, when she had carefully
abstained from informing herself; almost as tiresome as that poor
Mr. Rosier should have taken it into his own head. He was certainly
very inferior to Lord Warburton. It was not the difference in
fortune so much as the difference in the men; the young American was
really so light a weight. He was much more of the type of the
useless fine gentleman than the English nobleman. It was true that
there was no particular reason why Pansy should marry a statesman;
still, if a statesman admired her, that was his affair, and she
would make a perfect little pearl of a peeress.
It may seem to the reader that Mrs. Osmond had grown of a sudden
strangely cynical, for she ended by saying to herself that this
difficulty could probably be arranged. An impediment that was embodied
in poor Rosier could not anyhow present itself as a dangerous one;
there were always means of levelling secondary obstacles. Isabel was
perfectly aware that she had not taken the measure of Pansy's
tenacity, which might prove to be inconveniently great; but she
inclined to see her as rather letting go, under suggestion, than as
clutching under deprecation-since she had certainly the faculty of
assent developed in a very much higher degree than that of protest.
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