But Madame Merle sometimes said things that startled her, made her raise her clear eyebrows at the time and think of the words afterwards. "I'd give a great deal to be your age again," she broke out once with a bitterness which, though diluted in her customary amplitude of ease, was imperfectly disguised by it. "If I could only begin again--if I could have my life before me!"
"Your life's before you yet," Isabel answered gently, for she was vaguely awe-struck.
"No; the best part's gone, and gone for nothing."
"Surely not for nothing," said Isabel.
"Why not--what have I got? Neither husband, nor child, nor fortune, nor position, nor the traces of a beauty that I never had."
"You have many friends, dear lady."
"I'm not so sure!" cried Madame Merle.
"Ah, you're wrong. You have memories, graces, talents--"
But Madame Merle interrupted her. "What have my talents brought me? Nothing but the need of using them still, to get through the hours, the years, to cheat myself with some pretence of movement, of unconsciousness. As for my graces and memories the less said about them the better. You'll be my friend till you find a better use for your friendship."
"It will be for you to see that I don't then," said Isabel.
"Yes; I would make an effort to keep you." And her companion looked at her gravely. "When I say I should like to be your age I mean with your qualities--frank, generous, sincere like you. In that case I should have made something better of my life."
"What should you have liked to do that you've not done?"
Madame Merle took a sheet of music--she was seated at the piano and had abruptly wheeled about on the stool when she first spoke--and mechanically turned the leaves. "I'm very ambitious!" she at last replied.
"And your ambitions have not been satisfied? They must have been great."
"They WERE great. I should make myself ridiculous by talking of them."
Isabel wondered what they could have been--whether Madame Merle had aspired to wear a crown. "I don't know what your idea of success may be, but you seem to me to have been successful. To me indeed you're a vivid image of success."
Madame Merle tossed away the music with a smile. "What's YOUR idea of success?"
"You evidently think it must be a very tame one. It's to see some dream of one's youth come true."