't rise to it; something held her and made this impossible.
It was not exactly that it would be base or insidious; for women as a
general thing practise such manoeuvres with a perfectly good conscience,
and Isabel was instinctively much more true than false to the common
genius of her sex. There was a vague doubt that interposed--a sense that
she was not quite sure. So she remained in the drawing-room, and after a
while Lord Warburton went off to his party, of which he promised to give
Pansy a full account on the morrow. After he had gone she wondered
if she had prevented something which would have happened if she
had absented herself for a quarter of an hour; and then she
pronounced--always mentally--that when their distinguished visitor
should wish her to go away he would easily find means to let her know
it. Pansy said nothing whatever about him after he had gone, and Isabel
studiously said nothing, as she had taken a vow of reserve until after
he should have declared himself. He was a little longer in coming to
this than might seem to accord with the description he had given Isabel
of his feelings. Pansy went to bed, and Isabel had to admit that
she could not now guess what her stepdaughter was thinking of. Her
transparent little companion was for the moment not to be seen through.

She remained alone, looking at the fire, until, at the end of half an
hour, her husband came in. He moved about a while in silence and
then sat down; he looked at the fire like herself. But she now had
transferred her eyes from the flickering flame in the chimney to
Osmond's face, and she watched him while he kept his silence. Covert
observation had become a habit with her; an instinct, of which it is not
an exaggeration to say that it was allied to that of self-defence, had
made it habitual. She wished as much as possible to know his thoughts,
to know what he would say, beforehand, so that she might prepare her
answer. Preparing answers had not been her strong point of old; she had
rarely in this respect got further than thinking afterwards of clever
things she might have said. But she had learned caution--learned it in
a measure from her husband's very countenance. It was the same face she
had looked into with eyes equally earnest perhaps, but less penetrating,
on the terrace of a Florentine villa; except that Osmond had grown
slightly stouter since his marriage. He still, however, might strike one
as very distinguished.

"Has Lord Wa