She'll come back in plenty of time." Madame Merle, in fact, had come back before it was too late--too late, I mean, to recover whatever advantage she might have lost.

But meantime, if, as I have said, she was sensibly different, Isabel's feelings were also not quite the same.

Her consciousness of the situation was as acute as of old, but it was much less satisfying.

A dissatisfied mind, whatever else it may miss, is rarely in want of reasons; they bloom as thick as buttercups in June.

The fact of Madame Merle's having had a hand in Gilbert Osmond's marriage ceased to be one of her titles to consideration; it might have been written, after all, that there was not so much to thank her for.