she said to Isabel that her definition of success had been very pretty, yet frightfully sad. Measured in that way, who had ever succeeded? The dreams of one’s youth, why they were enchanting, they were divine! Who had ever seen such things come to pass?
“I myself — a few of them,” Isabel ventured to answer.
“Already? They must have been dreams of yesterday.”
“I began to dream very young,” Isabel smiled.
“Ah, if you mean the aspirations of your childhood — that of having a pink sash and a doll that could close her eyes.”
“No, I don’t mean that.”
“Or a young man with a fine moustache going down on his knees to you.”
“No, nor that either,” Isabel declared with still more emphasis.
Madame Merle appeared to note this eagerness. “I suspect that’s what you do mean. We’ve all had the young man with the moustache. He’s the inevitable young man; he doesn’t count.”
Isabel was silent a little but then spoke with extreme and characteristic inconsequence. “Why shouldn’t he count? There are young men and young men.”
“And yours was a paragon — is that what you mean?” asked her friend with a laugh. “If you’ve had the identical young man you dreamed of, then that was success, and I congratulate you with all my heart. Only in that case why didn’t you fly with him to his castle in the Apennines?”
“He has no castle in the Apennines.”
“What has he? An ugly brick house in Fortieth Street? Don’t tell me that; I refuse to recognise that as an ideal.”
“I don’t care anything about his house,” said Isabel.
“That’s very crude of you. When you’ve lived as long as I you’ll see that every human being has his shell and that you must take the shell into account. By the shell I mean the whole envelope of circumstances. There’s no such thing as an isolated man or woman; we’re each of us made up of some cluster of appurtenances. What shall we call our ‘self’? Where does it begin? where does it end? It overflows into everything that belongs to us — and then it flows back again. I know a large part of myself is in the clothes I choose to wear. I’ve a great respect for THINGS! One’s self — for other people — is one’s expression of one’s self; and one’s house, one’s furniture, one’s garments, the books one reads, the company one keeps — these things are all expressive.”
This was very metaphysical; not more so, however, than several observations Madame Merle had already made. Isabel was fond of metaphysics, but was unable to accompany her friend into this bold analysis of the human personality. “I don’t agree with you. I think just the other way. I don’t know whether I succeed in expressing myself, but I know that nothing else expresses me. Nothing that belongs to me is any measure of me; everything’s on the contrary a limit, a barrier, and a perfectly arbitrary one. Certainly the clothes which, as you say, I choose to wear, don’t express me; and heaven forbid they should!”
“You dress very well,” Madame Merle lightly interposed.
“Possibly; but I don’t care to be judged by that. My clothes may express the dressmaker, but they don’t express me. To begin with it’s not my own choice that I wear them; they’re imposed upon me by society.”
“Should you prefer to go without them?” Madame Merle enquired in a tone which virtually terminated the discussion.
I am bound to confess, though it may cast some discredit on the sketch I have given of the youthful loyalty practised by our heroine toward this accomplished woman, that Isabel had said nothing whatever to her about Lord Warburton and had been equally reticent on the subject of Caspar Goodwood. She had not, however, concealed the fact that she had had opportunities of marrying and had even let her friend know of how advantageous a kind they had been. Lord Warburton had left Lockleigh and was gone to Scotland, taking his sisters with him; and though he had written to Ralph more than once to ask about Mr. Touchett’s health the girl was not liable to the embarrassment of such enquiries as, had he still been in the neighbourhood, he would probably have felt bound to make in person. He had excellent ways, but she felt sure that if he had come to Gardencourt he would have seen Madame Merle, and that if he had seen her he would have liked her and betrayed to her that he was in love with her young friend. It so happened that during this lady’s previous visits to Gardencourt — each of them much shorter than the present — he had either not been at Lockleigh or had not called at Mr. Touchett’s. Therefore, though she knew him by name as the great man of that county, she had no cause to suspect him as a suitor of Mrs. Touchett’s freshly-imported niece.
“You’ve plenty of time,” she had said to Isabel in return for the mutilated confidences which our young woman made her and which didn’t pretend to be perfect, though we have seen that at moments the girl had compunctions at having said so much. “I’m glad you’ve done nothing yet — that you have it still to do. It’s a very good thing for a girl to have refused a few good offers — so long of course as they are not the best she’s likely to have. Pardon me if my tone seems horribly corrupt; one must take the worldly view sometimes. Only don’t keep on refusing for the sake of refusing. It’s a pleasant exercise of power; but accepting’s after all an exercise of power as well. There’s always the danger of refusing once too often. It was not the one I fell into — I didn’t refuse often enough. You’re an exquisite creature, and I should like to see you married to a prime minister. But speaking strictly, you know, you’re not what is technically called a parti. You’re extremely good-looking and extremely clever; in yourself you’re quite exceptional. You appear to have the vaguest ideas about your earthly possessions; but from what I can make out you’re not embarrassed with an income. I wish you had a little money.”
“I wish I had!” said Isabel, simply, apparently forgetting for the moment that her poverty had been a venial fault for two gallant gentlemen.
In spite of Sir Matthew Hope’s benevolent recommendation Madame Merle did not remain to the end, as the issue of poor Mr. Touchett’s malady had now come frankly to be designated. She was under pledges to other people which had at last to be redeemed, and she left Gardencourt with the understanding that she should in any event see Mrs. Touchett there again, or else in town, before quitting England. Her parting with Isabel was even more like the beginning of a friendship than their meeting had been. “I’m going to six places in succession, but I shall see no one I like so well as you. They’ll all be old friends, however; one doesn’t make new friends at my age. I’ve made a great exception for you. You must remember that and must think as well of me as possible. You must reward me by believing in me.”
By way of answer Isabel kissed her, and, though some women kiss with facility, there are kisses and kisses, and this embrace was satisfactory to Madame Merle. Our young lady, after this, was much alone; she saw her aunt and cousin only at meals, and discovered that of the hours during which Mrs. Touchett was invisible only a minor portion was now devoted to nursing her husband. She spent the rest in her own apartments, to which access was not allowed even to her niece, apparently occupied there with mysterious and inscrutable exercises. At table she was grave and silent; but her solemnity was not an attitude — Isabel could see it was a conviction. She wondered if her aunt repented of having taken her own way so much; but there was no visible evidence of this — no tears, no sighs, no exaggeration of a zeal always to its own sense adequate. Mrs. Touchett seemed simply to feel the need of thinking things over and summing them up; she had a little moral account-book — with columns unerringly ruled and a sharp steel clasp — which she kept with exemplary
