Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/372

364 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. the young men as sure as if she had held an interview with her on the subject. It was very tiresome that 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 4 the men ; the young American was really so very flimsy. 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 very picturesque little peeress. It may seem to the reader that Isabel had suddenly grown strangely cynical ; for she ended by saying to herself that this difficulty could probably be arranged. Somehow, an impediment that was embodied in poor Rosier could not 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 incon- veniently great ; but she inclined to think the young girl would not be tenacious, for she had the faculty of assent developed in a very much higher degree than that of resistance. She would cling, yes, she would cling ; but it really mattered to her very little what she clung to. Lord Warbmton would do as well as Mr. Rosier especially as she seemed quite to like him. She had expressed this sentiment to Isabel without a single reservation ; she said she thought his conversation most interesting he had told her all about India. His manner to Pansy had been of the happiest; Isabel noticed that for herself, as she also observed that he talked to her not in the least in a patronising way, reminding himself of her youth and simplicity, but quite as if she could understand everything. He was careful only to be kind he was as kind as he had been to Isabel herself at Gardencourt. A girl might well be touched by that ; she remembered how she herself had been touched, and said to herself that if she had been as simple as Pansy, the impression would have been deeper still. She had not been simple when she refused him ; that operation had been as complicated, as, later, her acceptance of Osmond; Pansy, however, in spite of her simplicity, really did understand, and was glad that Lord Warburton should talk to her, not about her partners and bouquets, but about the state of Italy, the condition of the peasantry, the famous grist-tax, the pellagra, his impressions of Roman society. She looked at him as she drew her needle through her tapestry, with sweet