ays "quiet."
But in this matter of not wishing to intrude upon the inner life of the
Osmond family it at last occurred to our young woman that she overdid a
little. That of course was not the best taste; that was rather violent.
She remembered too much that Isabel was married; that she had now other
interests; that though she, Madame Merle, had known Gilbert Osmond and
his little Pansy very well, better almost than any one, she was not
after all of the inner circle. She was on her guard; she never spoke of
their affairs till she was asked, even pressed--as when her opinion was
wanted; she had a dread of seeming to meddle. Madame Merle was as candid
as we know, and one day she candidly expressed this dread to Isabel.

"I MUST be on my guard," she said; "I might so easily, without
suspecting it, offend you. You would be right to be offended, even if my
intention should have been of the purest. I must not forget that I knew
your husband long before you did; I must not let that betray me. If you
were a silly woman you might be jealous. You're not a silly woman; I
know that perfectly. But neither am I; therefore I'm determined not
to get into trouble. A little harm's very soon done; a mistake's made
before one knows it. Of course if I had wished to make love to your
husband I had ten years to do it in, and nothing to prevent; so it isn't
likely I shall begin to-day, when I'm so much less attractive than I
was. But if I were to annoy you by seeming to take a place that doesn't
belong to me, you wouldn't make that reflection; you'd simply say I
was forgetting certain differences. I'm determined not to forget them.
Certainly a good friend isn't always thinking of that; one doesn't
suspect one's friends of injustice. I don't suspect you, my dear, in
the least; but I suspect human nature. Don't think I make myself
uncomfortable; I'm not always watching myself. I think I sufficiently
prove it in talking to you as I do now. All I wish to say is, however,
that if you were to be jealous--that's the form it would take--I should
be sure to think it was a little my fault. It certainly wouldn't be your
husband's."

Isabel had had three years to think over Mrs. Touchett's theory that
Madame Merle had made Gilbert Osmond's marriage. We know how she had
at first received it. Madame Merle might have made Gilbert Osmond's
marriage, but she certainly had not made Isabel Archer's. That was the
work of--Isabel scarcely knew what: of nature, pro