“I do remember it; but I beg you to forget it. In that way you’ll have both the virtue and the reward. This is not a great labour, and it may prove a real interest. How long is it since you made a new acquaintance?”
“I don’t think I’ve made any since I made yours.”
“It’s time then you should make another. There’s a friend of mine I want you to know.”
Mr. Osmond, in his walk, had gone back to the open door again and was looking at his daughter as she moved about in the intense sunshine. “What good will it do me?” he asked with a sort of genial crudity.
Madame Merle waited. “It will amuse you.” There was nothing crude in this rejoinder; it had been thoroughly well considered.
“If you say that, you know, I believe it,” said Osmond, coming toward her. “There are some points in which my confidence in you is complete. I’m perfectly aware, for instance, that you know good society from bad.”
“Pardon me. That isn’t--the knowledge I impute to you--a common sort of wisdom. You’ve gained it in the right way--experimentally; you’ve compared an immense number of more or less impossible people with each other.”
“Well, I invite you to profit by my knowledge.”
“To profit? Are you very sure that I shall?”
“It’s what I hope. It will depend on yourself. If I could only induce you to make an effort!”
“Ah, there you are! I knew something tiresome was coming. What in the world--that’s likely to turn up here--is worth an effort?”
Madame Merle flushed as with a wounded intention. “Don’t be foolish, Osmond. No one knows better than you what _is_ worth an effort. Haven’t I seen you in old days?”
“I recognise some things. But they’re none of them probable in this poor life.”
“It’s the effort that makes them probable,” said Madame Merle.
“There’s something in that. Who then is your friend?”
“The person I came to Florence to see. She’s a niece of Mrs. Touchett, whom you’ll not have forgotten.”
“A niece? The word niece suggests youth and ignorance. I see what you’re coming to.”
“Yes, she’s young--twenty-three years old. She’s a great friend of mine. I met her for the first time in England, several months ago, and we struck up a grand alliance. I like her immensely, and I do what I don’t do every day--I admire her. You’ll do the same.”