But I'll investigate and report to you." All this went on quite over Isabel's head; she had no suspicions that her relations with Mr.Osmond were being discussed.

Madame Merle had said nothing to put her on her guard; she alluded no more pointedly to him than to the other gentlemen of Florence, native and foreign, who now arrived in considerable numbers to pay their respects to Miss Archer's aunt.

Isabel thought him interesting--she came back to that; she liked so to think of him.

She had carried away an image from her visit to his hill-top which her subsequent knowledge of him did nothing to efface and which put on for her a particular harmony with other supposed and divined things, histories within histories: the image of a quiet, clever, sensitive, distinguished man, strolling on a moss-grown terrace above the sweet Val d'Arno and holding by the hand a little girl whose bell-like clearness gave a new grace to childhood.

The picture had no flourishes, but she liked its lowness of tone and the atmosphere of summer twilight that pervaded it.