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Her husband may have other views, and, as a person who wishes her well, I advise you not to multiply points of difference between them. Poor Rosiers face assumed an expression of alarm; a suit for the hand of Pansy Osmond was even a more complicated business than his taste for proper transitions had allowed. But the extreme good sense which he concealed under a surface suggesting that of a careful owners best set came to his assistance. I dont see that Im bound to consider Mr Osmond so very much! he exclaimed. No, but you should consider her. You say youre an old friend. Would you make her suffer? Not for the world. Then be very careful, and let the matter alone till Ive taken a few soundings. Let the matter alone, dear Madame Merle? Remember that Im in love. Oh, you wont burn up! Why did you come to me, if youre not to heed what I say? Youre very kind; Ill be very good, the young man promised. But Im afraid Mr Osmonds pretty hard, he added in his mild voice as he went to the door. Madame Merle gave a short laugh. It has been said before. But his wife isnt easy either. Ah, shes a splendid woman! Ned Rosier repeated, for departure. He resolved that his conduct should be worthy of an aspirant who was already a model of discretion; but he saw nothing in any pledge he had given Madame Merle that made it improper he should keep himself in spirits by an occasional visit to Miss Osmonds home. He reflected constantly on what his adviser had said to him, and turned over in his mind the impression of her rather circumspect tone. He had gone to her de confiance,4 as they put it in Paris; but it was possible he had been precipitate. He found difficulty in thinking of himself as rashhe had incurred this reproach so rarely; but it certainly was true that he had known Madame Merle only for the last month, and that his thinking her a delightful woman was not, when one came to look into it, a reason for assuming that she would be eager to push Pansy Osmond into his arms, gracefully arranged as these members might be to receive her. She had indeed shown him benevolence, and she was a person of consideration among the girls people, where she had a rather striking appearance (Rosier had more than once wondered how she managed it) of being intimate without being familiar. But possibly he had exaggerated these advantages. There was no particular reason why she should take trouble for him; a charming woman was charming to every one, and Rosier felt rather a fool when he thought of his having appealed to her on the ground that she had distinguished him. Very likelythough she had appeared to say it in jokeshe was really only thinking of his bibelots. Had it come into her head that he might offer her two or three of the gems of his collection? If she would only help him to marry Miss Osmond he would present her with his whole museum. He could hardly say so to her outright; it would seem too gross a bribe. But he should like her to believe it. It was with these thoughts that he went again to Mrs Osmonds, Mrs Osmond having an evening5she had taken the Thursday of each weekwhen his presence could be accounted for on general principles of civility. The object of Mr Rosiers well-regulated affection dwelt in a high house in the very heart of Rome; a dark and massive structure overlooking a sunny piazzetta6 in the neighbourhood of the Farnese Palace. In a palace, too, little Pansy liveda palace by Roman measure, but a dungeon to poor Rosiers apprehensive mind. It seemed to him of evil omen that the young lady he wished to marry, and whose fastidious father he doubted of his ability to conciliate, should be immured in a kind of domestic fortress, a pile which bore a stern old Roman name, which smelt of historic deeds, of crime and craft and violence, which was mentioned in Murray and visited by tourists who looked, on a vague survey, disappointed and depressed, and which had frescoes by Caravaggio in the piano nobile7 and a row of mutilated statues and dusty urns in the wide, nobly-arched loggia8 overhanging the damp court where a fountain |
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