Pansy went to bed, and Isabel had to admit that she could
not now guess what her stepdaughter was thinking of. Her transparent
little companion was for the moment not to be seen through.
She remained alone, looking at the fire, until, at the end of half
an hour, her husband came in. He moved about a while in silence and
then sat down; he looked at the fire like herself. But she now had
transferred her eyes from the flickering flame in the chimney to
Osmond's face, and she watched him while he kept his silence. Covert
observation had become a habit with her; an instinct, of which it is
not an exaggeration to say that it was allied to that of self-defence,
had made it habitual. She wished as much as possible to know his
thoughts, to know what he would say, beforehand, so that she might
prepare her answer. Preparing answers had not been her strong point of
old; she had rarely in this respect got further than thinking
afterwards of clever things she might have said. But she had learned
caution-learned it in a measure from her husband's very countenance.
It was the same face she had looked into with eyes equally earnest
perhaps, but less penetrating, on the terrace of a Florentine villa;
except that Osmond had grown slightly stouter since his marriage.
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