The portress left her to wait in the parlour of the convent while
she went to make it known that there was a visitor for the dear
young lady. The parlour was a vast, cold apartment, with new-looking
furniture; a large clean stove of white porcelain, unlighted, a
collection of wax flowers under glass, and a series of engravings from
religious pictures on the walls. On the other occasion Isabel had
thought it less like Rome than like Philadelphia, but to-day she
made no reflexions; the apartment only seemed to her very empty and
very soundless. The portress returned at the end of some five minutes,
ushering in another person. Isabel got up, expecting to see one of the
ladies of the sisterhood, but to her extreme surprise found herself
confronted with Madame Merle. The effect was strange, for Madame Merle
was already so present to her vision that her appearance in the
flesh was like suddenly, and rather awfully, seeing a painted
picture move. Isabel had been thinking all day of her falsity, her
audacity, her ability, her probable suffering; and these dark things
seemed to flash with a sudden light as she entered the room. Her being
there at all had the character of ugly evidence, of handwritings, of
profaned relics, of grim things produced in court.
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