miling 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. 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 alwa