Rosier was silent a little. ‘There’s one thing I’m sure he knows!’ he broke out presently. ‘He knows that when I come here it’s, with all respect to him, with all respect to Mrs Osmond, who’s so charming—it’s really,’ said the young man, ‘to see you!’

‘To see me?’ And Pansy raised her vaguely-troubled eyes.

‘To see you; that’s what I come for,’ Rosier repeated, feeling the intoxication of a rupture with authority.

Pansy stood looking at him, simply, intently, openly; a blush was not needed to make her face more modest. ‘I thought it was for that.’

‘And it was not disagreeable to you?’

‘I couldn’t tell; I didn’t know. You never told me,’ said Pansy.

‘I was afraid of offending you.’

‘You don’t offend me,’ the young girl murmured, smiling as if an angel had kissed her.

‘You like me then, Pansy?’ Rosier asked very gently, feeling very happy.

‘Yes—I like you.’

They had walked to the chimney-piece where the big cold Empire clock was perched; they were well within the room and beyond observation from without. The tone in which she had said these four words seemed to him the very breath of nature, and his only answer could be to take her hand and hold it a moment. Then he raised it to his lips. She submitted, still with her pure, trusting smile, in which there was something ineffably passive. She liked him—she had liked him all the while; now anything might happen! She was ready—she had been ready always, waiting for him to speak. If he had not spoken she would have waited for ever; but when the word came she dropped like the peach from the shaken tree. Rosier felt that if he should draw her toward him and hold her to his heart she would submit without a murmur, would rest there without a question. It was true that this would be a rash experiment in a yellow Empire salottino.⁴ She had known it was for her he came, and yet like what a perfect little lady she had carried it off!

‘You’re very dear to me,’ he murmured, trying to believe that there was after all such a thing as hospitality.

She looked a moment at her hand, where he had kissed it. ‘Did you say papa knows?’

‘You told me just now he knows everything.’

‘I think you must make sure,’ said Pansy.

‘Ah, my dear, when once I’m sure of you!’ Rosier murmured in her ear; whereupon she turned back to the other rooms with a little air of consistency which seemed to imply that their appeal should be immediate.

The other rooms meanwhile had become conscious of the arrival of Madame Merle, who, wherever she went, produced an impression when she entered. How she did it the most attentive spectator could not have told you, for she neither spoke loud, nor laughed profusely, nor moved rapidly, nor dressed with splendour, nor appealed in any appreciable manner to the audience. Large, fair, smiling, serene, there was something in her very tranquillity that diffused itself, and when people looked round it was because of a sudden quiet. On this occasion she had done the quietest thing she could do; after embracing Mrs Osmond, which was more striking, she had sat down on a small sofa to commune with the master of the house. There was a brief exchange of commonplaces between these two—they always paid, in public, a