Italy, all the same, had spoiled a great many people; he was even fatuous enough to believe at times that he himself might have been a better man if he had spent less of his life there.It made one idle and dilettantish and second-rate; it had no discipline for the character, didn't cultivate in you, otherwise expressed, the successful social and other "cheek" that flourished in Paris and London."We're sweetly provincial," said Mr.Osmond, "and I'm perfectly aware that I myself am as rusty as a key that has no lock to fit it.It polishes me up a little to talk with you- not that Iventure to pretend I can turn that very complicated lock I suspect your intellect of being! But you'll be going away before I've seen you three times, and I shall perhaps never see you after that.That's what it is to live in a country that people come to.When they're disagreeable here it's bad enough; when they're agreeable it's still worse.As soon as you like them they're off again! I've been deceived too often; I've ceased to form attachments, to permit myself to feel attractions.You mean to stay- to settle? That would be really comfortable.Ah yes, your aunt's a sort of guarantee; I believe she may be depended on.Oh, she's an old Florentine; I mean literally an old one; not a modern outsider.She's a contemporary of the Medici; she must have been present at the burning of Savonarola, and I'm not sure she didn't throw a handful of chips into the flame.
Her face is very much like some faces in the early pictures; little, dry, definite faces that must have had a good deal of expression, but almost always the same one.Indeed I can show you her portrait in a fresco of Ghirlandaio's.I hope you don't object to my speaking that way of your aunt, eh? I've an idea you don't.Perhaps you think that's even worse.I assure you there's no want of respect in it, to either of you.You know I'm a particular admirer of Mrs.Touchett."While Isabel's host exerted himself to entertain her in this somewhat confidential fashion she looked occasionally at Madame Merle, who met her eyes with an inattentive smile in which, on this occasion, there was no infelicitous intimation that our heroine appeared to advantage.Madame Merle eventually proposed to the Countess Gemini that they should go into the garden, and the Countess, rising and shaking out her feathers, began to rustle toward the door."Poor Miss Archer!" she exclaimed, surveying the other group with expressive compassion."She has been brought quite into the family.""Miss Archer can certainly have nothing but sympathy for a family to which you belong," Mr.Osmond answered, with a laugh which, though it had something of a mocking ring, had also a finer patience.
"I don't know what you mean by that! I'm sure she'll see no harm in me but what you tell her.I'm better than he says, Miss Archer,"the Countess went on."I'm only rather an idiot and a bore.Is that all he has said? Ah then, you keep him in good-humour.Has he opened on one of his favourite subjects? I give you notice that there are two or three that he treats a fond.In that case you had better take off your bonnet.""I don't think I know what Mr.Osmond's favourite subjects are,"said Isabel, who had risen to her feet.
The Countess assumed for an instant an attitude of intense meditation, pressing one of her hands, with the finger-tips gathered together, to her forehead."I'll tell you in a moment.One's Machiavelli; the other's Vittoria Colonna; the next is Metastasio.""Ah, with me," said Madame Merle, passing her arm into the Countess Gemini's as if to guide her course to the garden, "Mr.
Osmond's never so historical."
"Oh you," the Countess answered as they moved away, "you yourself are Machiavelli- you yourself are Vittoria Colonna!""We shall hear next that poor Madame Merle is Metastasio!" Gilbert Osmond resignedly sighed.
Isabel had got up on the assumption that they too were to go into the garden; but her host stood there with no apparent inclination to leave the room, his hands in the pockets of his jacket and his daughter, who had now locked her arm into one of his own, clinging to him and looking up while her eyes moved from his own face to Isabel's.Isabel waited, with a certain unuttered contentedness, to have her movements directed; she liked Mr.Osmond's talk, his company: