By way of answer Isabel kissed her, and, though some
women kiss with facility, there are kisses and kisses, and this
embrace was satisfactory to Madame Merle. Our young lady,
after this, was much alone; she saw her aunt and cousin only
at meals, and discovered that of the hours during which Mrs
Touchett was invisible only a minor portion was now devoted
to nursing her husband. She spent the rest in her own apart-
ments, to which access was not allowed even to her niece,
apparently occupied there with mysterious and inscrutable
exercises. At table she was grave and silent; but her solemnity
was not an attitude — Isabel could see it was a conviction. She
wondered if her aunt repented of having taken her own
way so much; but there was no visible evidence of this — no
tears, no sighs, no exaggeration of a zeal always to its own
sense adequate. Mrs Touchett seemed simply to feel the
need of thinking things over and summing them up; she had
a little moral account-book — with columns unerringly ruled
and a sharp steel clasp — which she kept with exemplary neat-
ness. Uttered reflection had with her ever, at any rate, a prac-
tical ring. ‘If I had foreseen this I’'d not have proposed your
coming abroad now,’ she said to Isabel after Madame Merle
had left the house. ‘I’d have waited and sent for you next
year.’