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It's to see some dream of one's youth come true." "Ah," Madame Merle exclaimed, "that I've never seen! But my dreams were so great so preposterous. Heaven forgive me, I'm dreaming now!" And she turned back to the piano and began grandly to play. On the morrow she said to Isabel that her definition of success had been very pretty, yet frightfully sad. Measured in that way, who had ever succeeded?
So Madame Merle went on, with much of the brilliancy of a woman who had long been a mistress of the art of conversation. But there were phases and gradations in her speech, not one of which was lost upon Isabel's ear, though her eyes were absent from her companion's face.
I must get away by myself into my old home, where I began my life, and readjust it as well as I can. I shall do it best there with no one to distract me. You need not fear my wishing to be too long alone." "We ought to have let you go," answered Mr. Clifford. "Jean Merle said we ought to have let you go with them. But how could we part with you, Phebe?"
"I guess that shows you what the old gas bag knows about it." "Oh, you'll soon learn to carry that hole!" his brother soothed. "Now let's see what you can do with that niblick." He grinned again as they went on to the ditch. "Sharon Whipple calls his niblick his 'gitter'." Merle, however, would not join in the grin. Sharon Whipple still made him tired.
"My certy! but 'twas pretty to see yon merle, though!" he murmured, having restored the kettle to sanity. "Fine it minded me, ma'am, o' the time when I was a boy, huntin' like a nickum for the nests o' mavis an' merle blackbird an' thrush when I'd rise 'wi' lark an' light! Fegs!"
I have written on the blackboard the names of those girls who have been nominated: "Muriel Burnitt. "Aubrey Simpson. "Edith Carey. "Mavis Ramsay. "Merle Ramsay. "What I want you to do is to write on your piece of paper the names of the two candidates for whom you wish to vote, then fold your paper and hand it in.
"But it's not to talk about Pansy." Isabel wondered what it could be to talk about, and in spite of Madame Merle's declaration she answered after a moment: "Madame Catherine says it's enough." "Yes; it also seems to me enough. I wanted to ask you another word about poor Mr. Touchett," Madame Merle added. "Have you reason to believe that he's really at his last?"
They will be singing by-and-by, and never know who is standing outside, in the foggy night, listening to them." Her voice broke into sobs, but Jean Merle did not notice them. "And Felicita?" he said. Phebe could not answer him for weeping. Just yet she could hardly bring herself to think distinctly of Felicita; though in fact her thoughts were full of her.
This latter fact had been preceded by an incident of some importance to Isabel the temporary absence, once again, of Madame Merle, who had gone to Naples to stay with a friend, the happy possessor of a villa at Posilippo. Madame Merle had ceased to minister to Isabel's happiness, who found herself wondering whether the most discreet of women might not also by chance be the most dangerous.
She'll be found strangled in her own work some day. And Uncle Sharon mad about the war, and fifty times madder about Merle.
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