"I came to see you, thinking you would have come in; and as you hadn't I waited for you," Madame Merle said.
"Didn't he ask you to sit down?" Isabel asked with a smile.
Madame Merle looked about her. "Ah, it's very true; I was going away."
"You must stay now."
"Certainly. I came for a reason; I've something on my mind."
"I've told you that before," Isabel said—"that it takes something extraordinary to bring you to this house."
"And you know what I've told you; that whether I come or whether I stay away, I've always the same motive—the affection I bear you."