There was a train for Turin and Paris that evening; and after the Countess had left her Isabel had a rapid and decisive conference with her maid, who was discreet, devoted and active.After this she thought (except of her journey) only of one thing.She must go and see Pansy; from her she couldn't turn away.She had not seen her yet, as Osmond had given her to understand that it was too soon to begin.
She drove at five o'clock to a high door in a narrow street in the quarter of the Piazza Navona, and was admitted by the portress of the convent, a genial and obsequious person.Isabel had been at this institution before; she had come with Pansy to see the sisters.She knew they were good women, and she saw that the large rooms were clean and cheerful and that the well-used garden had sun for winter and shade for spring.But she disliked the place, which affronted and almost frightened her; not for the world would she have spent a night there.It produced to-day more than before the impression of a well-appointed prison; for it was not possible to pretend Pansy was free to leave it.This innocent creature had been presented to her in a new and violent light, but the secondary effect of the relation was to make her reach out a hand.
The portress left her to wait in the parlour of the convent while she went to make it known that there was a visitor for the dear young lady.The parlour was a vast, cold apartment, with new-looking furniture; a large clean stove of white porcelain, unlighted, a collection of wax flowers under glass, and a series of engravings from religious pictures on the walls.On the other occasion Isabel had thought it less like Rome than like Philadelphia, but to-day she made no reflexions; the apartment only seemed to her very empty and very soundless.The portress returned at the end of some five minutes, ushering in another person.Isabel got up, expecting to see one of the ladies of the sisterhood, but to her extreme surprise found herself confronted with Madame Merle.The effect was strange, for Madame Merle was already so present to her vision that her appearance in the flesh was like suddenly, and rather awfully, seeing a painted picture move.Isabel had been thinking all day of her falsity, her audacity, her ability, her probable suffering; and these dark things seemed to flash with a sudden light as she entered the room.Her being there at all had the character of ugly evidence, of handwritings, of profaned relics, of grim things produced in court.It made Isabel feel faint; if it had been necessary to speak on the spot she would have been quite unable.But no such necessity was distinct to her; it seemed to her indeed that she had absolutely nothing to say to Madame Merle.In one's relations with this lady, however, there were never any absolute necessities; she had a manner which carried off not only her own deficiencies but those of other people.But she was different from usual: she came in slowly, behind the portress, and Isabel instantly perceived that she was not likely to depend upon her habitual resources.For her too the occasion was exceptional, and she had undertaken to treat it by the light of the moment.This gave her a peculiar gravity; she pretended not even to smile, and though Isabel saw that she was more than ever playing a part it seemed to her that on the whole the wonderful woman had never been so natural.She looked at her young friend from head to foot, but not harshly nor defiantly; with a cold gentleness rather, and an absence of any air of allusion to their last meeting.It was as if she had wished to mark a distinction.She had been irritated then, she was reconciled now.