"Ah, you ARE dangerous--even by yourself!" "If you want her to like you don't abuse your brother to her," said Madame Merle.
"I don't suppose you pretend she has fallen in love with him in two interviews." Madame Merle looked a moment at Isabel and at the master of the house.
He was leaning against the parapet, facing her, his arms folded; and she at present was evidently not lost in the mere impersonal view, persistently as she gazed at it.

As Madame Merle watched her she lowered her eyes; she was listening, possibly with a certain embarrassment, while she pressed the point of her parasol into the path.

Madame Merle rose from her chair.

"Yes, I think so!" she pronounced.
The shabby footboy, summoned by Pansy--he might, tarnished as to livery and quaint as to type, have issued from some stray sketch of old-time manners, been "put in" by the brush of a Longhi or a Goya--had come out with a small table and placed it on the grass, and then had gone back and fetched the tea-tray; after which he had again disappeared, to return with a couple of chairs.

Pansy had watched these proceedings with the deepest interest, standing with her small hands folded together upon the front of her scanty frock; but she had not presumed to offer assistance.