er was frank,
but (a rare case with Mrs. Touchett) not so frank as it pretended. She
easily forgave her niece for not stopping at Florence, because she
took it for a sign that Gilbert Osmond was less in question there than
formerly. She watched of course to see if he would now find a pretext
for going to Rome, and derived some comfort from learning that he had
not been guilty of an absence. Isabel, on her side, had not been a
fortnight in Rome before she proposed to Madame Merle that they should
make a little pilgrimage to the East. Madame Merle remarked that her
friend was restless, but she added that she herself had always been
consumed with the desire to visit Athens and Constantinople. The two
ladies accordingly embarked on this expedition, and spent three months
in Greece, in Turkey, in Egypt. Isabel found much to interest her in
these countries, though Madame Merle continued to remark that even among
the most classic sites, the scenes most calculated to suggest repose
and reflexion, a certain incoherence prevailed in her. Isabel travelled
rapidly and recklessly; she was like a thirsty person draining cup
after cup. Madame Merle meanwhile, as lady-in-waiting to a princess
circulating incognita, panted a little in her rear. It was on Isabel's
invitation she had come, and she imparted all due dignity to the girl's
uncountenanced state. She played her part with the tact that might have
been expected of her, effacing herself and accepting the position of a
companion whose expenses were profusely paid. The situation, however,
had no hardships, and people who met this reserved though striking
pair on their travels would not have been able to tell you which
was patroness and which client. To say that Madame Merle improved on
acquaintance states meagrely the impression she made on her friend,
who had found her from the first so ample and so easy. At the end of an
intimacy of three months Isabel felt she knew her better; her character
had revealed itself, and the admirable woman had also at last redeemed
her promise of relating her history from her own point of view--a
consummation the more desirable as Isabel had already heard it related
from the point of view of others. This history was so sad a one (in so
far as it concerned the late M. Merle, a positive adventurer, she might
say, though originally so plausible, who had taken advantage, years
before, of her youth and of an inexperience in which doubtless those who
knew he