174 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. " No ; the best part is gone, and gone for nothing." " Surely, not for nothing," said Isabel. " Why not what have I got ? Neither husband, nor child, nor fortune, nor positioD, nor the traces of a beauty which I never had." " You have friends, dear lady." " I am not so sure ! " cried Madame Merle. " Ah, you are wrong. You have memories, talents " 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 action. As for my memories, the less said about them the better. You will 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," Madame Merle rejoined, looking at her gravely. " When I say I should like to be your age," she went on, "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 have not don el" 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. At last si to said " I am very ambitious ! ' " And your ambitions have not been satisfied 1 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 are an image of success." Madame Merle tossed away the music with a smile. " What is your idea of success ] " "You evidently think it must be very tame," said Isabel " It is to see some dream of one's youth come true." "Ah," Madame Merle exclaimed, "that I have never seen! But my dreams were so great so preposterous. Heaven forgive me, I am dreaming now." And she turned back to the piano and began to play with energy. On the morrow she said to Isabel that her definition of success had been very pretty, but frightfully sad. Measured in
