‘Don’t talk about gratitude,’ he returned dryly. ‘And don’t aggravate me,’ he added in a moment.

Madame Merle slowly seated herself, with her arms folded and her white hands arranged as a support to one of them and an ornament, as it were, to the other. She looked exquisitely calm but impressively sad. ‘On your side, don’t try to frighten me. I wonder if you guess some of my thoughts.’

‘I trouble about them no more than I can help. I’ve quite enough of my own.’

‘That’s because they’re so delightful.’

Osmond rested his head against the back of his chair and looked at his companion with a cynical directness which seemed also partly an expression of fatigue. ‘You do aggravate me,’ he remarked in a moment. ‘I’m very tired.’

‘Eh moi donc!’¹ cried Madame Merle.

‘With you it’s because you fatigue yourself. With me it’s not my own fault.’

‘When I fatigue myself it’s for you. I’ve given you an interest. That’s a great gift.’

‘Do you call it an interest?’ Osmond enquired with detachment.

‘Certainly, since it helps you to pass your time.’

‘The time has never seemed longer to me than this winter.’

‘You’ve never looked better; you’ve never been so agreeable, so brilliant.’

‘Damn my brilliancy!’ he thoughtfully murmured. ‘How little, after all, you know me!’

‘If I don’t know you I know nothing,’ smiled Madame Merle. ‘You’ve the feeling of complete success.’

‘No, I shall not have that till I’ve made you stop judging me.’

‘I did that long ago. I speak from old knowledge. But you express yourself more too.’

Osmond just hung fire. ‘I wish you’d express yourself less!’

‘You wish to condemn me to silence? Remember that I’ve never been a chatterbox. At any rate there are three or four things I should like to say to you first. Your wife doesn’t know what to do with herself,’ she went on with a change of tone.

‘Pardon me; she knows perfectly. She has a line sharply drawn. She means to carry out her ideas.’

‘Her ideas to-day must be remarkable.’

‘Certainly they are. She has more of them than ever.’

‘She was unable to show me any this morning,’ said Madame Merle. ‘She seemed in a very simple, almost in a stupid, state of mind. She was completely bewildered.’

‘You had better say at once that she was pathetic.’

‘Ah no, I don’t want to encourage you too much.’

He still had his head against the cushion behind him; the ankle of one foot rested on the other knee. So he sat for a while. ‘I should like to know what’s the matter with you,’ he said at last.