"And what else should you do, Lady Farley?" asked her host.
"I should never attempt to amend his anecdotes. This is an unpardonable sin. I have known homes broken up and lifelong friendships destroyed, by one person's saying that a thing happened on Thursday, when theraconteurhad said Friday; while quarrels to which there could be no reconciliation have ensued from a difference of opinion as to whether A. met B. by the 10.20 or the 10.45 train."
"Lady Farley has studied men to some purpose," said Madderley.
The lady smiled. "There is such a thing as compulsory education."
"Caroline is quite right," agreed Lady Esdaile, "it is never any use arguing with a man. In the first place he is always sure to know better than you do."
"That was not my reason for objecting to the habit," murmured Lady Farley.
"But he always is—that is, if it is anything out of books or newspapers. Of course clothes are a different thing, and there I should be very careful about trusting a man's taste too far. At least their taste is right enough, but they seem to have no proper regard for fashion."
"Perhaps now that Aunt Caroline has taught us how to adapt ourselves to men, Mr. Madderley will teach us how to adapt ourselves to women," suggested Isabel; "for I believe he prides himself on his profound knowledge of, and contempt for, the sex."
"With pleasure. Whenever I am dealing with ladies I take as my guide and watchword the legend painted upon the racks of railway carriages: 'These racks are suited for light articles only, and must not be used for heavy luggage;' and I find this is a most successful prescription. For 'light articles' one must read, pleasure, luxury, admiration, amusement, etc.; and for 'heavy luggage,' sickness, sorrow, love, poverty, and every other adversity."
"I see," said Isabel.
"I once knew a man who put his heavy luggage in the rack, in spite of the printed warning," said the artist, "and it fell through and broke his head; I knew another man who made a similar mistake in dealing with a lady; the consequences were practically the same, only it was his heart instead of his head that was broken."
Isabel's eyes flashed. "I am afraid your friends are not as wise as you are."
"Perhaps not; but I am hoping that they will learn wisdom by experience."
"Now where I find men so difficult as friends," said Isabel, "is that they never will tell you why they are vexed. When a man is out of temper there is no secret about it—he who runs may read, and she who reads had better run away; but the reason for this vexation is kept a profound secret."
"You are quite right there," agreed Lady Farley; "it is an interesting but inexplicable fact. A woman is different; she will probably not show at all that she is annoyed, but if she shows it she will tell you the why and the wherefore."
"That is quite true; my experience of the sex is that when they are angry they do not err on the side of want of frankness," sighed Lord Robert.
"And then men are so jealous and exacting," continued Isabel, "that is where they disgust me."
The artist looked at Isabel curiously, as if by the outward eye he could discover whether she were as heartless as she pretended to be; but her appearance afforded him no clue to the problem. "A man who irritates a woman by showing his jealousy, and destroys her pleasure by such evil tempers, is a fool—and worse than a fool," he said.
"Oh! not worse than a fool."
"You are pleased to be merciful, Miss Carnaby."
"Because there is nothing worse," she added.
"I quite agree with you," said Madderley, "but some men seem to regard all things as patent or copyright, which is manifestly absurd; and men in love are worse in this respect than Platonic friends."
Isabel went on with her lunch while the artist continued: "If a clergyman or a doctor is not able—owing to absence or illness—to do his work, he supplies alocum tenensto take his place. And he is grateful to—instead of offended with—the latter for so doing. Then why cannot a lover pursue the same course, and with the same 'sweet reasonableness,' I want to know?"
"The cases hardly seem to me parallel," said Lord Wrexham, looking puzzled.
"Of course it doesn't do to press a metaphor too far," assented Madderley.
"Another absurd thing about men," Isabel went on, "is that they expect you to like them because they are kind to you, and do what you want; while what you really like them for is the trick of their manner or the colour of their hair."
"I think you are in a minority there, my dear Isabel," said Lady Farley, "as a rule kindness appeals more to a woman than anything. I believe any man could make any woman love him, if he were only kind enough long enough."
"People like us for what we do, and love us for what we are," interpolated Sir Benjamin; "that is my experience."
"I know," agreed Isabel, "therefore we can make people like us but we cannot make them love us."
"That is true of a woman," said Lady Farley, helping herself to strawberries, "but hardly of a man. I still hold that any man can win a woman's love through kindness; and I also hold that external roughness of manner will—in a woman's eyes—counteract the effect of any amount of secret devotion. When all is said and done, we like the men who will dance with us better than the men who would die for us; such is the constitution of the normal female mind."
Isabel tossed her head. "I do not think so."
"But surely you like the people who are kind to you, don't you?" asked her host.
"No; I like people because they are attractive, not because they are kind. I always pity children when they have to kiss grown-ups who have given them presents. If I were a child, I should not want to kiss the lady who had given me the prettiest present, but the lady who had the prettiest face."
"But children are taught to show forth their gratitude not only in their lives but with their lips," suggested the artist.
"It is a senseless plan all the same," laughed Isabel; "I couldn't bear to think that my friends liked me only because I was kind to them."
"I do not think you need distress yourself on that score, dear lady."
"I want people to like me because I am attractive in myself—not because I am amiable."
Mr. Madderley shook his head. "I cannot commend your prudence; for you will probably cease to be attractive when you are about five-and-forty, while you can go on being amiable until you are eighty-nine."
"I don't see that; hundreds of women are attractive long after they are five-and-forty."
"Of course they are; but they generally belong to the plump and amiable school. Tongue is not a dish which improves by keeping, my dear Lady Disdain."
"Wrexham, turn him out of the room, at once," cried Isabel; "he is becoming insufferable!"
"What did he say? I did not hear," inquired the host, who was feeding his dogs at that particular moment.
"He says my tongue is too sharp."
"And he isn't far wrong," sang out Lord Bobby; "if you don't take care you'll be stung to death by your own tongue, like the crocodile or the scorpion or some other old chappie. You should have seen a girl I took in to dinner last week; all through dinner she kept saying, 'Oh, Lord Bobby, how clever you are!' And she never said anything else. Now that is the sort of conversation that men like; it is far better than the dizzying, fizzying stuff that brilliant women treat us to."
"Don't you like the girls whom you think clever?" asked Violet.
"I like the girls who think me clever a long sight better; and I don't believe that this is by any means a peculiar taste."
"Young people think and talk too much about what they like and dislike," said Lady Wrexham, rising from the table, "when I was a girl I knew what people were related to each other, and which families were old and which new; but I did not bother my head about who was attractive and who was amiable and who was neither."
"If you have nothing special to do this afternoon, Thistletown," said Lord Wrexham, "I wish you would drive Madderley in the dog-cart to Sunny Hill; I particularly want him to see the view from there, it is such a fine one and also so typical of this part of the country."
"I could have better shared a better plan," replied Bobby; "but my obliging nature cannot say him nay."
"You can upset him and break all his bones for being so rude to me at lunch," suggested Isabel.
"That would do him no good. You may break, you may shatter his bones if you will, but the outward signs of an overweening vanity and a most unlovable disposition will cling to him still."
Then the party dispersed, and Isabel went with her lover to see some model cottages which he had just built, and which he was particularly anxious to show to her. She listened patiently while he explained all the improvements, and then she said: "I wonder if happiness is to be found in such things as subsoils and artesian wells."
Lord Wrexham looked at his cottages with satisfaction. "Health is to be found in them, and health is a constituent part of happiness."
"Perhaps; of course you couldn't be happy without being healthy; but it doesn't follow that you couldn't be healthy without being happy. I wonder in what happiness really does lie."
"I don't know; I never thought about it."
"But you should think about such things, my dear Wrexham; it is stupid of you not to, you know."
"But I cannot analyze my feelings, as you do; I am not an introspective person."
"I find nothing so interesting as the study of myself," said Isabel.
"That is very likely; but you are an interesting person and I am not; so the analysis of me would prove a most wearisome experiment."
"That has nothing to do with it. The analysis of me is instructive only so far as I am normal, and therefore uninteresting. It shows what human nature is like. When I am original I cease to be interesting from a scientific point of view."
"I am afraid I don't quite follow you."
"Can't you see that in vivisecting a frog, the more common the frog the more instructive is the experiment?"
"Yes; I can see that."
"Then the same principle applies to a woman. But do you mean to tell me you never think about your feelings?" asked Isabel.
"No; I feel them, and that is enough for me."
"That is very tame!"
"You see," explained Lord Wrexham, "I have so many other things to think about. An estate like this requires a good deal of management, and I am so anxious to do my duty by all my tenants and workpeople."
"Do you get really interested in the people about the place, and want to know what they are all thinking and feeling and caring about?"
"Of course not, my dear young lady; but I want them to be comfortable and prosperous, and to regard me as a satisfactory landowner."
They walked on in silence for a short time, and then Isabel said: "Isn't it funny how some people make everything into a treat by just being there?"
"I don't quite understand what you mean, my dearest."
"Don't you know how the mere presence of some people will turn a stuffy little parlour into a fairy palace, and a dusty street into a byway of Paradise?"
"Surely that is somewhat extravagant language," replied Lord Wrexham, "of course I know that some sorts of society are much more congenial than others, but everybody can see that."
"Do you know what it is to feel that life is made up of a lot of strange questions and problems and desires, and that one person is the answer to them all?" persisted Isabel.
"My dearest child, what funny ideas you have! I am afraid that you read too much poetry and fiction, and that it overexcites your brain."
"Oh! I don't read all that in books," replied Isabel scornfully. "I know it of myself; and, by the way, how many selves have you got?"
"How many selves? Why, only one, of course."
"Well, that is very one-sided of you! Now there are five of me, all neatly labelled and scheduled."
"Which are they, I should like to know?" inquired Lord Wrexham.
"Oh! there is my very best ideal self, and my brilliant society self, and my jolly every-day self, and my ill and unhappy self, and the demon."
"What ever do you mean by the demon?"
"I mean me, when I am shallow and selfish and worldly, and say nasty, sharp things, and care for nothing but admiration, and am a regular wretch all round."
"What is the best self like?"
"She learned that the wisdom of this world is foolishness," replied Isabel dreamily, "and she found the key to life's Holy of Holies. Therefore I killed her, because she knew too much. You never met her, and I have forgotten her, for it is nearly two years since she died."
"Really, Isabel, you are a little too prone to let your imagination run away with you. But now I want you to look at this rustic fencing; it is an idea of my own, and is, I think, most effective."
"Oh! it is pretty enough," replied Isabel indifferently.
Lord Wrexham's face fell. "I am so sorry you are not more pleased with it, my darling; I designed it for you, and I did so hope that it would give you pleasure. Is there anything about it you would like different?"
"Oh! no; it is all right."
"You see, all my delight now in improving Vernacre is in making it fitter for you. It could never be worthy of such a mistress as it will have; but I hardly let a day pass without doing something to make it a little more meet for your acceptance."
"It is very good of you," said Isabel gently, as they turned away.
"Not at all; it is mere selfishness on my part, as my greatest pleasure lies in pleasing you. I trust you will not hesitate to mention anything that you would like different, either in my home or in myself; and, if alteration is possible, it shall be made."
"Do you mean you would let me tell you of your faults?"
"Of course I would," replied Lord Wrexham; "and, what is more, I would try to correct them."
"I once invented a game where every member of the company was told of one fault by the rest of the party unanimously, on condition he or she promised to amend it and not to be offended."
Lord Wrexham opened a gate leading into the park. "Was it a successful pastime?"
"It ought to have been, but somehow it wasn't. It led to strained relations all round, and yet nobody seemed to have a fault the less in consequence. Now, I played it in the proper spirit, and I cured two bad faults of my own."
"It was very impertinent of anybody to dare to tell you of your faults, Isabel; and if I had been there I would have told them so."
"No; it wasn't at all impertinent; it was only part of the game. I forget what my faults were," continued Isabel musingly, "but I know I cured them both."
"I wish you would play that game with me, and tell me where you would like me to be different," said Lord Wrexham rather wistfully. "I know I am stupid, and not quick at understanding things, but that seems more a misfortune than a fault; at any rate I don't get over it, and no one but myself knows how hard I try. But anything that I could alter, I gladly would, to make life with me less dull for you, my dear."
"You haven't any faults, Wrexham; not a single one."
Lord Wrexham smiled with pleasure.
"But your virtues are rather overcrowded, like the shrubs at Elton," continued Isabel, "and would be all the better for a little thinning out."
Lord Wrexham's smile faded. Isabel had a nasty trick of wiping the smiles clean off the faces of those that loved her too much. However, when she saw that she had hurt her lover, she was seized with compunction, and began to make amends.
"I say, Wrexham, what is that funny little windmill for at the foot of the hill?" She knew well enough what it was for before she asked, but she also knew that Lord Wrexham would delight in explaining it.
His face brightened at once. "It is a new arrangement for pumping water up to the house. You see, Isabel, we have hitherto drunk the water from a well in the courtyard, which did quite nicely for us. But when I found that you were coming to live at Vernacre I had it analyzed; and discovered that, although there was nothing much amiss with it, it was not quite so pure as the water from a spring at the foot of that hill. So, by means of a most ingenious arrangement, the wind pumps all the drinking water for the house up from that one spring, which I have proved is the purest water on the estate."
"How good you are to me, my dear old boy!"
"I want you to have the best of everything, and I mean to give it you as far as I can. But I should like to explain the mechanism of this arrangement to you, Isabel. It is a most clever contrivance, I think, and repays examination."
So Isabel listened patiently while her lover expounded to her how the wind turned the wheel which pumped the water up to the house, so that much work was accomplished by means of a very little outlay.
"You are so awfully clever at things of this kind," she said, as they strolled homewards, "I am sure you have literally more brains in your little finger than most men have in their stupid heads."
"I have not many brains anywhere, I am afraid; but as I am always thinking about you and wondering what I can do for your comfort and pleasure, I should indeed be a poor fool if I did not hit upon the right thing sometimes." And Lord Wrexham sighed.
"You very often hit upon the right thing. I don't think you have any idea what a comfort you are to me, Wrexham. When my head and heart are tired out they always come back to you, as if you were a patent soothing syrup or a provision for old age. I call you my 'rest cure'."
"I am thankful if I bring you any happiness, my child, in return for the abundant measure you have bestowed upon me in promising to be my wife; yet I am but a dull companion for such a brilliant young creature as yourself. However, when you come to Vernacre for good, we will always have the house full of young people, so that you will never have time to be bored by your slow old coach of a husband."
"You are not a slow old coach," cried Isabel indignantly, "you are the best and dearest man in the whole world!"
"Am I?—well, it is heaven to me to hear you say so, whether you really think it or not. Not that I mean you would ever say what you did not know to be true; but you are sometimes carried away by your warm feelings to say things which exceed the convictions of your cooler moments."
"I know I am," replied Isabel, "but I always try to be frank and truthful."
Her lover smiled rather sadly. "My dear, it is very noble of you to be so transparent, and never to pretend you care more for me than you really do; and my rational side commends and admires this uprightness. But now and then I am weak enough to wish that you would let me deceive myself a little, and not be so conscientious in your desire to enlighten me. A fool's paradise may be a poor thing; but it is better than no paradise at all."
Isabel's eyes filled with tears. "Oh, Wrexham, how horrid I must have been to you!"
"Never horrid to me, Isabel—never anything but charming and fascinating and altogether delightful. It is I who am to blame for being somewhat tiresome and exacting. Oh! my dear, do you think I don't know how dull and stupid I am, and how tired you must sometimes feel of my society? Yet I am such an old fool that I like to pretend to myself that I am to you in some measure what you are to me, though I know perfectly well all the time that such an idea is absurd and impossible in the extreme."
"What is it in me that makes you like me so much?" asked Isabel abruptly, as they were watching the sun set behind the distant hills.
"No special thing; I love the whole of you, and your faults as well as your virtues."
"But don't you like me better in some moods than in others?"
"I don't think so; I always love you just the same; whatever you do or say, you are you, and that is enough for me."
"But doesn't it make any difference when I am nasty to you?" persisted Isabel.
"It makes all the difference between happiness and misery, but it does not make any difference in my love for you."
"You are a good man, Wrexham!"
"My dear, there is no goodness or badness in it. I am simply made like that, and I cannot help it."
"Nevertheless, you are perfect, whether it is your own doing or Nature's."
"If I were ten times better than I am, I should still not be half good enough for you."
"You'd always take my part, whoever I quarrelled with, wouldn't you?" coaxed Isabel, sticking a primrose, she had just gathered, into her lover's button-hole.
"Always."
"Even if I were wrong?"
"Exactly the same whether you were wrong or whether you were right; the merits of the case would have no effect upon me."
Isabel patted his arm. "Now that is what I call real justice. It is qualities such as this that make women love and respect men."
Lord Wrexham laughed, and then said: "Here we are at the peach-house. I want you to come and see some improvements I have just carried out in the stove, which I think will ensure our getting twice as many peaches as we have ever had out of this house before."
Whereupon his lordship plunged into a minute description of the methods whereby his peaches were to be prematurely ripened, and Isabel gave him her most satisfying attention.
When the walk was over, Isabel went to her own room and looked at herself in the glass. "Miss Carnaby," she said, "you are not really a handsome woman, and Fate has given you far more than you deserve. In exchange for a pretty wit and an indifferent face and a most admirable figure, you will receive a coronet and twenty thousand a year, with the best husband in the world thrown in as a perquisite, like a present of books with so many pounds of tea. So the least you can do for the next forty years is to talk pleasantly and intelligently about windmills and peach-houses and such like interesting subjects, remembering that—if you'd had your own foolish way—you might instead have been living upon a few paltry hundreds a year, with a jealous and bad-tempered young man who couldn't keep a civil tongue in his head for two days together."
For the rest of the Easter recess Isabel made herself specially charming to her host. She was flattered and petted on all sides, and he was the cause of it, so she felt accordingly grateful. The praise which is always accorded to the woman who doeth well to herself was hers in full measure just then; and it put her in a good humour with herself and with her world. She tried her utmost not to be bored when Wrexham talked to her about the things in which he was interested, and she succeeded, in so far as she hid her boredom from everybody in the house except herself and him; but, clever as she was, she was not quite clever enough for that.
Rank and wealth I pass unheeding,Never giving them their due,For my heart and soul are needingNothing in the world but you.
"As I have often remarked," said Isabel one hot June morning, as she and Lady Farley were sitting together in the latter's boudoir, "the world—as the world—has nothing better to offer than a State Concert."
"I agree with you," replied her aunt, "it combines the charms of a religious service and a smart party, and has the advantages of both with the disadvantages of neither."
"The music is always good—so are the dresses and the diamonds—and the Palace is the coolest place in London."
"Quite true," said Lady Farley; "and what more can the heart and flesh of fashionable woman desire?"
"Several things. For instance, my cup of happiness will not overflow till I have a diamond tiara. Now there you have the advantage of me."
"But you cannot have a tiara without having a husband as well; and there you have the advantage of me."
"I shall not have the advantage of you long." And Isabel laughed.
"No; but you will then have the tiara in place of the advantage."
"One of my chief reasons in getting married is to secure to myself the right of wearing a tiara," remarked Isabel, "I consider that a woman of thirty without a tiara is as indecent as a woman of ninety without a cap. Women must be crowned with either youth or diamonds, or else must hide their diminished heads under the cloak of religion, and retire into nunneries and sisterhoods."
"My dear, you are too sarcastic for so young a person; no unmarried woman should ever say nasty things—unless she is a professional beauty. Still, I hope you will enjoy the Concert to-night, in spite of the shame of your uncovered head."
"I am thankful it is a Concert and not a Ball. If it were a Ball, I should have to talk to Wrexham all evening; but now I can keep silence, and let the dear man feast his eyes upon the beauties of my irregular profile, instead of feasting his ears upon the charms of my still more irregular conversation."
"Then poor Wrexham will come badly off to-night," said Lady Farley; "for your conversation is infinitely superior to your profile, my dear."
"I know it is; but I wish you would not tread upon my toes—or, more correctly, upon my nose—so ruthlessly. It is simply fiendish to throw a woman's nose in her teeth in that fashion."
"Poor Isabel!"
"I always envy the women with good noses more than I can express," continued Miss Carnaby, leaning back in her chair and gazing thoughtfully up to the ceiling; "eyes grow dim and teeth depart and figures increase, but a good nose is an abiding resting-place for your vanity. You know that it will last out your time, whatever happens; and that age cannot wither nor custom stale its satisfactory proportions."
"That is so," agreed Lady Farley, tenderly stroking her own perfect little aquiline.
"I always wonder how the women with pretty noses carry on their advertizing department. Of course, when we have good eyes, we call attention to the same by making use of eye service as men pleasers, so to speak; and when we have good teeth, we smile as often as is compatible with the reputation for sanity, and we frequently complain of the toothache."
"Oh! is that your plan of campaign? I have often wondered how teeth as white as yours are can ache as much as you say they do; but now I understand it is only a ruse."
"You misjudge me there, Aunt Caroline. I know my teeth are pretty, but they are merely little devils disguised as angels of light, for I have inherited an estate of fine and extensive achers. But you haven't yet informed me how the well-nosed women call attention to their stock in trade."
"My dear, when a thing is as plain as the nose on your face it does not require any advertisement, according to proverbial philosophy."
"It is not when it is plain that the necessity arises," continued Isabel, "but only when it is pretty."
"How absurd you are! Do you talk to Lord Wrexham like this?"
"Good gracious! no; he would think I was out of my mind, and would recommend some new German baths or other, which the faculty had discovered as the latest cure for insanity; and then he would carefully explain to me the chemical action of the waters upon the tissue of the human brain."
"You really are too bad, Isabel!" said Lady Farley severely, "Lord Wrexham is a peer, and one of the best matches in London; and yet you treat him as badly as if you were marrying him for love. It is very incorrect and improvident of you."
Isabel opened her blue eyes very wide. "You don't have to make love to him for three hours and more at a stretch, or you would not talk about him in that careless and happy way. I confess that the excellent man's wealth and rank and virtue are unequalled—save, perhaps, by his dulness; but, believe me, there is only one thing on earth more fatiguing than talking to Wrexham, and that is listening to him. Take this as a wrinkle from one who knows."
"You should adapt yourself to him, my dear; it does not do for a man to know that a woman is cleverer than he is."
"He doesn't know it; I do, but I have never let him find it out. And as for adapting myself—why, my dear aunt, if you heard me talk to him you would take me for a land-agent or a farm-labourer."
"Hardly," said Lady Farley, who was lazily looking through her list of engagements for the day.
"Yes, you would. Personally I prefer talking about hearts and souls and ideals, to discussing silos and reaping-machines and land-bills; but Wrexham dotes upon the latter, so on the latter does my nimble tongue run. Adaptability is my strong point, don't you know?"
"And your weak point too, my child. You are so exactly what people want you to be, that nobody knows what the real you is like."
"Ah! butIknow, more's the pity!"
"Then you know more than I do."
"Yes, I am wonderfully adaptable; in fact I have reduced adaptability to a science; I always make myself five years younger and one degree less intelligent than the man who takes me in to dinner; that is why I am so popular."
"It is the popular women who make shipwreck of their lives, and the unpopular ones who sail safely into pleasant havens. My experience is that the attractive women get the nice little things, and the unattractive ones the nice big things in this world." And Lady Farley sighed, as she sat down to answer invitations.
"I know," said Isabel, rising from her chair and strolling doorwards, "the latter, out of sheer gratitude, marry the first man that asks them, and spend the rest of their lives in returning thanks for his kind inquiry."
That night Isabel went with her uncle and aunt to the State Concert. The scene was as brilliant as usual, with the gay dresses and uniforms—with the daïs for Royalty at one end of the great saloon, and the musicians' gallery at the other, the intervening space being filled up with the cream of English society.
"I say," cried Lord Robert Thistletown, plumping himself down beside them as soon as they had taken their seats, "there will be a sound of revelry this night without a doubt; for I see a chorus out of one of old Wagner's things down on the programme, and he is the best chap for making a row I ever came across."
"You should not speak disrespectfully of Wagner," corrected Isabel, "he is one of the greatest composers—as I am one of the greatest conversationalists—of the age."
"I am not disrespectful; I only think that, compared with you and Wagner, the rest of the world is silence."
"I see it is theChorus of Flower Maidensout ofParsifal," remarked Isabel.
"I suppose all those young women in white are the maidens; but which are the flowers, I wonder?"
"Yourself, my dear young friend; you are the flower of the English aristocracy, don't you know?"
"Of course I am. Yet sometimes I forget that I am a flower, and behave like a stinging nettle. That is when the brilliancy of my wit outruns the benevolence of my heart."
"If you lightly touch a nettle——" Isabel began.
"Exactly so; you have hit the nail on the head, most wise young woman. It is only when you trifle with me that I become dangerous; 'grasp me like a man of mettle,' and you will find that the tighter you squeeze me the more affectionate shall I become."
"I wonder if 'a man of mettle' means a warrior or an iron-master," remarked Isabel.
"It entirely depends upon how you spell the word, and that again depends upon which type of man you prefer to grasp, so it is all a matter of taste."
"How absurd you are!"
"Don't the little boys out of the Chapel Royal choir look dear?" exclaimed Lord Robert, pointing to the orchestra. "It is a sweet dress! I mean to sing in the choir of the Chapel Royal when I am grown up, because the dress is so peculiarly becoming to my style of beauty."
"It would be, I should say; and you are just the right size for it, only about six foot two."
"Exactly; scarlet is my colour. I was always bent on wearing a scarlet uniform, but I have gone through agonies of indecision as to whether I should attain that end through joining the British army or the choir of the Chapel Royal. I decided on the former, and made a mistake; and a mistake is worse than a crime, and only one degree better than a virtue."
"Then what is your reason for resigning the army in favour of the St. James's choir?" asked Isabel, opening her huge feather fan.
"Merely this, that whenever I am called upon to fight or to sing, I invariably run away; and my friends consider that what is a sign of cowardice in the one case becomes an act of public charity in the other, and that therefore the choir is my true vocation and calling."
"I should like to hear you sing."
"Pardon me, you wouldn't," replied Lord Bobby. "When I overcome my natural diffidence and give tongue, the noise is something tremendous; walls tremble, foundations shake, and roofs are carried bodily away. One day a traveller in passing through our place asked if there had been a whirlwind or an earthquake or a siege, the devastation was so appalling; but he was told that there had only been a village concert the night before, and my lordship had sung a couple of comic songs."
"It must be a terrible sound!"
"It is; that is why I so rarely do it. As Shakespeare or Milton or some other old Johnnie remarked, it is all very well to have a giant's strength, but to use it as a giant is simply beastly."
"Isn't it a brilliant scene?" said Isabel. "I love to see the stars and garters and things; don't you?"
"They are awfully jolly. Don't you think an order would suit me? Then—
With my Bath upon my shoulder and my Garter by my side,I'd be taking some great heiress and be making her my bride.
Has your uncle got his ribbon on?"
"Of course; he always takes his Bath when he goes to grand parties," replied Isabel.
"How nice and clean of him I And that reminds me that my mother was overhauling the school-children the other day down at our place at home, and telling them that dirt was very wrong and very unwholesome. 'But please, your ladyship,' piped up a little chap, 'it's very warm.' Wasn't that quite too nice?"
"Delicious. Oh! look at the bishops. Don't they look dear?"
"Simply sweet; just like lovely, purple, saintly footmen," agreed Bobby.
"I never saw a saintly footman."
"But I did: we had one once. He had conscientious scruples against saying 'Not at home,' and laying the wineglasses for dinner. We bore with that for a long time, because he was six foot three and very good-looking; but finally it developed into socialism, and he wanted to call the governor, Wallingford, and my mother, Augusta. Then he had to go. And mother made a rule that for the future the footmen might keep bicycles, on condition that they did not want to keep consciences as well."
"What nonsense you do talk, Bobby!"
"I know I do; it is my greatest charm. But here comes Wrexham, so I must resign my seat in his favour, as if he were a party-leader. It must be funny to be engaged, and always obliged to sit by the same person!"
Isabel gently fanned herself.
"I love variety," continued Bobby, "and I hate having to take the same woman down to dinner twice in the same season. That is one good thing in getting married; you know then that, whatever happens, there is one woman you will never have to take in to dinner again as long as you live. It is this thought alone which has inspired the majority of proposals that I have already made."
And then Bobby flew off to "fresh woods and pastures new," while Lord Wrexham sat down beside Isabel, and began to talk to her in his gently instructive manner.
Isabel was wrong when she said that her lover had no idea that he bored her. It may be easy for a woman to throw dust in the eyes of the men who only admire her; but the men who love her see too clearly to be blinded by any paltry artifice, and frequently suffer accordingly. Lord Wrexham knew that he bored Isabel, and the knowledge well-nigh broke his heart; but he could no more help boring her than he could help breathing. He made mistakes in his dealings with her, and frequently said the wrong thing; therefore Isabel was hard upon him. Friendship may pardon our misdeeds; but it is only love that can forgive our mistakes. Nevertheless Isabel's lover succeeded in making her think that he thought she did not think him stupid—wherein he showed himself the cleverer of the two.
"Isn't the room delightfully cool?" remarked Isabel.
"It is; the system of ventilation here is admirable. I wish I could introduce it at Vernacre."
"Vernacre is perfect as it is," said Miss Carnaby graciously, "so please don't begin to improve it. I am a good Liberal; and experience has taught me that there is nothing so deteriorating in its influence as improvement, nor so retrogressive in its tendency as reform."
"You are joking," replied Lord Wrexham, kindly explaining to Isabel that she did not mean what she said, "of course it is true that a too abrupt or sudden improvement partakes more of the nature of revolution than of reform; but a slow and steady tendency in a progressive direction, is the only healthy condition for a State as for an individual."
"Nevertheless, I have noticed that reform generally means discomfort, and that ventilation invariably means draughts."
"Proper ventilation ought not, however, to mean draughts; it should change the air imperceptibly, without causing a strong current anywhere. But you don't feel a draught here, do you, dear?" inquired his lordship anxiously, looking up at the high windows, "because, if so, I will find you another seat at once."
"Good gracious! no; how could I, on such a broiling night? I should think that even the Ministers are warm enough now."
"Are they not generally?"
"Not in their war-paint; bald heads and silk stockings are very chilly wear; it is like burning the candle at both ends."
"Or rather at neither; as candles are warm instead of cold."
"Of course; you are always right," replied Isabel, accepting the correction in the letter but not in the spirit of meekness. "This room really is a lovely sight, isn't it?" She was wondering how soon the Royalties would arrive.
"It is; its proportions are so fine that it never strikes one as large or small," agreed her lover.
"Oh! I don't mean that it is a fine sight architecturally; I mean the company looks so smart. Everybody is here—that is to say, everybody who is anybody."
"Well, not quite everybody; you are a little inaccurate, my dear. Some people are asked to the second Concert and the first Ball, instead of to the first Concert and the second Ball as we have been," explained Lord Wrexham. "I do not know how the Lord Chamberlain picks and chooses, but there is no advantage of one over the other."
"I expect they divide, the people alphabetically," observed Isabel absently, looking towards the entrance at the upper end of the room.
"I expect so; that is always a most satisfactory plan in lists of any kind. But no," he continued, looking puzzled, "that cannot be the system, because I am invited to the first Concert and my name begins with aW."
"But there is no reason, that I can see, why the alphabet should not begin atWand end atVfor a change, instead of the old eternalAandZsystem," said Isabel wickedly.
Lord Wrexham appeared more puzzled than ever. "It would be most unusual, and I do not see that any advantage would be gained thereby."
"It would be a reform, and that is always a distinct advantage, don't you know?"
Lord Wrexham's face relaxed. "Ah! now I see you are laughing at me," he said pleasantly; and after a moment's meditation, he began to laugh himself. "That was very funny, Isabel—very funny indeed! To begin the alphabet atWby way of a reform! Capital! capital! And, as you say, my dear, quite as sensible as many reforms that are suggested."
"Hush!" whispered Isabel, "they are coming."
And then that silence fell upon everybody which always falls just before something is going to happen—be that something the advent of a royal procession, or only the more every-day occurrence of dawn. The officers of the Household entered walking backwards, and all the company rose to their feet as the orchestra struck up the National Anthem. Finally the Royalties themselves appeared and bowed to their assembled guests, while the ladies curtsied in response, till the room looked like a cornfield when a summer breeze goes by.
When everybody was seated, Isabel whispered to Lord Wrexham: "I do love anything in the shape of a function; it gives me a thrill all down my back. Do you ever have thrills down your back?"
Lord Wrexham considered for a moment: he never answered a question hurriedly, lest he should thereby be led into inaccuracy. "No, I cannot say that I ever do, unless I am suffering from the effects of a chill."
"Then there must be something wrong with your back, if 'God Save the Queen' does not send a thrill all down it. I would consult a spine doctor if I were you—a 'bacteriologist' I suppose one would call him."
"If you feel a sensation of that kind now, I feel sure you must be sitting in a draught; I can account for it in no other way," said Lord Wrexham, his kind face clouded over with loverlike anxiety.
"Nonsense!" replied Isabel rather sharply, "what I feel is no draught, but a deeply rooted human instinct which cries out for functions both in Church and State; and that instinct will have to be eradicated before all forms of Royalty and Ritualism can be abolished from this best of all possible worlds. It takes a strong Government to disestablish an instinct."
"I cannot quite follow you, dear; you go too quickly for a slow old coach like myself, and I am mentally out of breath with trying to keep up with you. What connection can a draught down one's back have with established methods of worship and government?"
"Never mind about following me; I am not worth the trouble. And we must not talk any more; the music is beginning."
After the music began, strange and disturbing thoughts whirled through Isabel's mind. Whether it was because the beauty of sight and sound stimulated her emotional nature, she could not tell; but the old, aching hunger for Paul, which she had succeeded in stifling for so long, woke up and would not be put to silence. She looked at the gorgeous scene around her, and realized that the world had given her of its best; she had bartered her heart and her soul for its glory and honour, and the price had been paid her to the uttermost farthing. She had nothing to complain of on that score; and she was too clever and experienced a woman to call the triumph she had accomplished dust and ashes. It was a good enough thing in its way, only it was not Paul—and Paul, unfortunately, was the only thing that she cared for. It is absurd to call worldly success worthless, because it does not happen to be the precise thing that we personally desire; just as it would be absurd to call roast beef uneatable, when we happen to be thirsty rather than hungry. But we want what we want, and not what is suitable or convenient or wise—and nothing else in the whole world will satisfy us.
It is one of the saddest, if not one of the most comforting, things in life, that when people have caught a glimpse of the best, the second-best can never again content them. If they have once—be it only for a moment—worn the best robe and sat down to the feast, they will never more really enjoy the husks of the far country; even though the citizens of that country prepare the same with their most delicate arts, and serve them up on gold plate. Unwise men do not consider this, and fools do not understand it; so that the former find out too late that their souls must be starved to death for lack of that better thing which they once so carelessly threw away; while the latter enjoy their husky diet in peace, unknowing that there is any better thing at all.
Isabel Carnaby belonged to the former class. She was wise enough to recognize the best when she saw it; and foolish enough, having seen it, to let it go. She might have been a happy woman, had she had more heart or less; but, now, such as she had was breaking. Suddenly the veil, which she had so carefully draped in front of her inner life, was ruthlessly torn away, and the ideal self, whom she thought she had slain, woke up in the renewed strength of a long slumber; and she knew that she loved Paul as she had loved him in the beginning and as she would love him to the end, and that no other man could ever supplant him in her love or in her life. She could have laughed aloud at the grim irony of the thing, as she realized that the brilliant scene around her, with its perfection of everything that civilization has to offer, was as nothing in her eyes in comparison with a quaint little chapel in an old-fashioned country town, where she and Paul once stood side by side and sang a hymn together.
"How these people would laugh at me," she said to herself, "if they knew that I would gladly give up all the best music of the finest orchestras in London, to hear once more 'There is a land of pure delight' sung in a Methodist chapel! But, all the same, I would."
When the concert was over and they went into the supper-room, Isabel was strangely quiet and subdued; which convinced Lord Wrexham more forcibly than ever that she had been sitting in a draught and would be ill next day.
"My dear, I wish you had a little wrap with you," he said, "to put on when you walk along the corridors and through the drawing-rooms."
"Well I haven't," replied Isabel; "I am so fond of giving little raps to my friends that I don't keep any for myself—which perhaps is too altruistic on my part."
When they had had supper and were leaving the Palace, Lord Robert Thistletown drew Isabel on one side. "I only just want to say good-bye to you," he said; and she saw, to her surprise, that his usually rosy face was very white.
"Why, where ever are you going to, Bobby, that you should say good-bye instead of good-night?"
"I am starting with my regiment for India to-morrow. There is some nasty fighting out there, don't you know? and we are ordered to the front."
"Oh, Bobby!"
"Of course it is a piece of awfully good luck for me to see active service so soon, and I should be wild with delight if it wasn't for Violet. But somehow the things you want always seem to come to you just as soon as you've left off wanting them."
"Have you spoken to Violet?" asked Isabel.
"I did not mean to. I thought it was more honourable to leave her free till I came back, and all that sort of thing. But I went to say good-bye to her to-day, and it somehow popped out without my intending it. I am afraid I was rather a selfish brute to tell her, considering how young she is; but she looked so pretty I could not help it." And Bobby tugged at his moustache regretfully.
"Don't regret it," said Isabel earnestly, "men have an idiotic notion that it is the proper thing to keep a woman in ignorance of the fact that they love her, till they are ready with the marriage-settlements; it never appears to occur to them that to her the settlements are of no importance compared with the love."
"And I'm so poor that when we get to the settlements they'll only be strait settlements," replied Bobby, with a rueful attempt to laugh.
"Never mind that. Always remember that to a man, love-making is the prologue to marriage; but to a woman, marriage is the epilogue to making-love."
"Then good-bye," whispered Lord Bobby, squeezing her hand very tight, and manfully swallowing down a silly lump that would come in his throat, "and if I am potted by the niggers, you'll comfort my little girl, won't you, and teach her to forget?"
Isabel's eyes filled with tears. "My dear boy, I cannot teach her that, for I have not learnt it myself; it is an art never mastered by women. But I will teach her that there is really no such thing as forgetfulness just as there is really no such thing as death."
There were many who strove in the battle of life,Who shared in the struggle and joined in the strifeAnd fought to their uttermost breath;But some stood aside while the battle rolled by,And lifted to heaven an agonized cry—"We are wounded," they said, "to the death!"
"Wrexham," said Isabel to her lover the next day, as they were sitting in the drawing-room in Prince's Gate, "I am going to make you unhappy, but I cannot help it."
Lord Wrexham's face grew anxious. "I know what it is; you caught cold last night, and you fear you are going to be ill. I was afraid there was a draught all the time."
"No, it isn't that—it is something much worse," replied Isabel gently; she was very patient with Wrexham now.
"Then tell me the worst at once. I cannot bear suspense where you are concerned."
"Please don't mind very much, dear," said Isabel, laying her hand caressingly on his coat-sleeve, "but I cannot marry you."
Lord Wrexham turned very white. "Cannot marry me? What ever do you mean?"
"I mean that I have been deceiving myself all along, and that I do not really love you, though I admire and esteem and respect you with all my heart."
"But, my dearest, I never for a moment supposed that you did love me. I used sometimes to pretend to myself that you did, because it made me so happy; but I really knew all the time that it was absurd to expect a brilliant and attractive woman like you to fall in love with such a stupid old fellow as I am. I only asked to be allowed to love you; and I ask that still."
"But it isn't fair to take the best that you have to offer, and only to give you scraps in return," cried Isabel.
"I am the best judge of that; and surely if I am content it is all right."
"But it isn't all right, Wrexham; I love some one else."
Lord Wrexham shaded his face with his hand. "Well?" was all he said, but the voice in which he said it was not his own.
Isabel's eyes were full of pity as she looked at him. "I will be candid with you at last," she said, "but please remember that it was myself I was deceiving, and not you. Even I could not sink so low as to wilfully deceive such a good man as you are."
"My dear, do not excuse yourself to me. Remember that whatever you do or leave undone I shall never blame you, nor allow any one else to do so. My queen can do no wrong."
"I was angry with Paul Seaton because I thought he had ceased to love me," continued Isabel hurriedly, "I had no right to think so, but I got the idea into my head and it would not go. And I was so wild with anger and misery, that I said hard and cruel things to him that can never be forgiven; and I drove him out of my life, and pretended that I did not mind."
"My poor, wayward, petulant child!"
"And then I persuaded myself that I did not care for the deeper things of life, but could be happy with money and rank and pleasure and such trifles as these. And people flattered me and admired me, and I thought that I was content, and that my love for Paul had been only a girlish fancy."
Lord Wrexham drew his breath hard, but he did not speak.
"But after a time I found myself growing hard and bitter, and I knew that my youth was going, and that I had nothing to show for it. And then you came by, and offered me everything that society counts worth having. I was a woman of the world, and I knew that if I became Lady Wrexham my apparent failure would be changed into a glorious success. So I accepted you."
"I see."
"Yet I was not altogether base," Isabel went on; "I love you in a restful, prosaic kind of way; and I thought that that would be enough, and that the sort of love I had given to Paul was a dream of the past which I could never dream again. But I was wrong. My love for Paul Seaton is no half-forgotten vision, but the strongest thing in me; and I cannot marry any other man."
"My darling, I quite understand," said Lord Wrexham; "it was only natural that a dull man like myself should fail to win your love. You could not help it any more than I could, so we are neither of us to blame."
Isabel shook her head. "It was not that; it had nothing to do with you. Whatever you had been, it would have made no difference. You were not Paul, and that was all that mattered to me."
"But Mr. Seaton is a clever man and a very brilliant writer," said Lord Wrexham generously, though he took care to use the prefixMr.
"That has nothing to do with it either. He is clever, I admit, and kind and good; but so are scores of other men that I have known. I cannot tell you why I love him so much. I only know that to me he is the only man in the whole world, and always will be."
"My dear, I hope you will be very happy with him." And the kind voice trembled.
"Oh! no, there is no chance of that. I have offended him past all forgiveness. Please don't think I have broken off my engagement with you because I am going to marry my old lover. I shall not marry anybody, but shall count as one of society's failures; and people will pity me as they see me growing old all by myself. Yet I shall not be altogether hard and bitter, because I have tasted what love is like; and having once tasted it (even though I dashed the cup from my lips with my own hands) I can never drink of any other. But, oh! Wrexham, how can I ever forgive myself for having hurt you?" And then Isabel's torrent of words was stopped by a torrent of tears.
Lord Wrexham rose from his chair and laid his hand on her bowed head. "My dear, there must never be any question of forgiveness between you and me, for I was yours to do what you liked with. We both made a mistake—you in thinking that you could be content with me, and I in dreaming that I could make you happy. But if ever you get tired of growing old alone, remember that there are always one man's heart and hand waiting for you, if you should choose to take them."
And before Isabel could answer him he was gone.
"Always one man's heart and hand waiting for me, even when I grow old and horrid," she said to herself through her tears, "and he never even remembered that there was Vernacre and a coronet as well. How good he is, and what a gentleman!"
During the next few weeks Isabel devoted herself to the comforting of Violet Esdaile, who accepted the consolation with the egotism of youth, never noticing that the heart of the comforter was even heavier than her own. To Violet the whole world was one huge background to Bobby Thistletown, and all other persons and events mere incidents therein; just as one sometimes sees prints of the Duke of Wellington with the battle of Waterloo and the Great Exhibition of '51 thrown in, as small adjuncts to the distant view, to add lustre to the central figure. We most of us have portraits of this kind hidden away somewhere in our hearts; and to a person with a sense of humour it would be interesting to note the relative importance of the figures and their surroundings. At first sight it seems funny that the University of Oxford should have been founded by King Alfred, and enriched by the art and learning of the centuries, merely to serve as a background for one particular graduate; or that London should have out-Babyloned Babylon, and become the greatest city in the world, in order to supply the near distance for the portrait of one special woman. But looked at with the seeing eye and the understanding heart these things are not really funny at all; any more than it is funny for the cluster of the Pleiades to take up apparently less space than an ordinary wedding-ring, or for the Great Nebula in Orion to seem more insignificant than the hand of a little child.
Many times a day did Isabel listen to a catalogue of Bobby's excellencies, and many times a day did she willingly say Amen to them all; for though Violet was too young to think that any man mattered except Bobby, Isabel was old enough to know that all men mattered because of Paul. So Isabel went down to Esdaile Court with her relations; and there spent her days in talking about Bobby and her nights in dreaming about Paul.
There was one dreadful day at Esdaile when Bobby's name appeared in the list of the wounded; and a glorious one when England rang with his praises, because the news came that he had received his wounds in going back under fire—after he had himself reached a place of safety—to rescue a fallen comrade.
Then followed one of those wretched weeks when the days are punctuated by telegrams and bulletins instead of by meal-times and sun-risings; and after a time there came one of those blessed seasons, known to most of us, when those who have come back from the gates of the grave combine the pathetic sacredness of the dead with the sweet familiarity of the living, and we feel that we can never be angry with their faults nor irritated by their follies any more. Of course we can, and are, and shall be, because there is much that is human both in us and them; but at first we do not believe it possible, because there is also in both of us something that is divine.
It was in this same summer—though rather earlier than the date of Lord Robert Thistletown's going to India—that the editor ofThe Hoursdied; and it was generally supposed in literary circles that the brilliant young writer, Paul Seaton, would take his place. There were many who hoped for the post, as it was one which united great political influence with considerable pecuniary advantage; but there was no doubt in the minds of the initiated that Seaton was the man for the place; as, in addition to his qualifications as a man of letters, his political views were almost identical with those of Sir John Shelford, the proprietor of the paper.
Early in June Paul ran down home for a week, to discuss with his people the change in his life and fortunes which appeared imminent; for to Paul himself—as to the rest of his profession—his selection as editor ofThe Hoursseemed a foregone conclusion.
There were other reasons, besides the satisfying of his ambition, that made Paul greatly desire this appointment. As the editor ofThe Pendulumhe was a poor man, but as the editor ofThe Hourshe would be a rich one; and he specially wanted money just then, as things were looking dark in the Cottage at Chayford. For the last few months Joanna's health had been causing much anxiety to her parents, and Mrs. Seaton was not as strong as she had been; and it is in times of sickness and adversity that the pinch of poverty hurts most.
"Do you very much want to be the editor ofThe Hours?" asked Joanna one day.
"Yes," answered Paul; "more than I thought I should ever want anything again. Besides the pay—which it would be affectation to pretend that I am indifferent to—it is a position of such tremendous influence. The editor ofThe Hourssways more opinions than I should like to say."
"You are very fond of power, Paul," said his mother.
Paul smiled sadly. "It is all that is left to me, you see; and a man must have something to set his heart upon."
One morning, when Paul was the last to appear at the breakfast-table, Joanna greeted him with the cry: "There is a letter for you from the office ofThe Hours, and I am sure it is to say that the appointment is yours."
Paul broke the seal and found it was a communication from Sir John Shelford. It was a kind enough letter, and full of regrets; but Sir John said that he could not conscientiously give a post of such far-reaching influence as that of editor ofThe Hoursto the man who wroteShams and Shadows. Paul's political views, he added, were his own; Paul's literary style and knowledge, all that could be desired; nevertheless it would not be right for the man who had more to do, perhaps, with the forming of public opinion in England than any other, to be held responsible for the unsound political teaching and the untrue philosophy of life which were found in the pages ofShams and Shadows. Sir John went on to speak in most flattering terms ofSome Better Thing, and to say that such a book placed its author in the first rank of living men of letters, "but," he continued, "you are too much a man of the world to need telling thatlitera scripta manet, and that what a man has written he has written;" and he showed that, because ofShams and Shadows, Paul could never realize his ambition and become the editor ofThe Hours.
There was silence for a few moments after Paul had ceased reading, and Mrs. Seaton began to cry quietly behind the coffee-pot.
"Never mind, mother," he said manfully, though his face was pale and tired, "it is no good making a trouble of things. I don't deny that it is a disappointment, but I can bear it all right if only you won't let it make you unhappy."
"But it is so hard," sobbed Mrs. Seaton, "that a man should be punished for a thing of which he repented long ago."
"But the world never forgives," sighed the minister; "it is only God and our mothers that can do that."
"I think that Shelford is an old beast," cried Joanna warmly, "and I hope that the new editor, whoever he is, will ruin the paper, and cause all the Shelfords to die in the workhouse."
Paul tried to smile. "I cannot help seeing that Shelford is right. The editor ofThe Hoursmust be above suspicion, from a literary and political point of view, or else the prestige of the paper will go down at once. Men in positions of great influence should never have anything to explain away."
"Well, it seems to me a great shame," repeated Mrs. Seaton, wiping her eyes, "that people should be punished for things after they have been sorry, and have done all in their power to undo them."
"Still it is the way of the world," replied Paul, "when a wrong has once been done there is no undoing it, but the punishment must be borne and the debt paid to the uttermost farthing."
"It is a most disgusting piece of injustice!" exclaimed Joanna.
Paul pretended to go on with his breakfast. "No, it isn't; it is perfectly just. For everything we do or leave undone we must sooner or later pay the bill, and we should take this into account before we give our orders to Fate. I am now paying the bill for the writing ofShams and Shadows."
"But you are sorry that the book ever was written, aren't you?" asked Joanna.
"I should rather think I am; far sorrier than any one else can ever be. Still I was a free agent, and what I did I did with my eyes open, and now that the bill has come in, I mean to pay up like a man, and not grumble. It is only a fool that builds a tower or goes to war without counting the cost."
"The cost is very heavy this time," said Mr. Seaton; "it is bad enough when a thing costs only money, but it is worse when it costs other things."
"Shams and Shadowshas cost me a good deal more than money," said Paul.
"I know it has," replied his father, "and I hoped that the debt would have been forgiven you."
Paul smiled. "It is a vain hope now-a-days to imagine that when we go down into Egypt to buy corn, the money will be put back into our sacks' mouths. Sometimes it happens, but only to Fortune's favourites; and I have never been one of these. But if we are obliged to pay our bills, we need not talk about them, if you don't mind."
So the subject of conversation was changed; but for the rest of the day Joanna murmured to herself at intervals, when nobody was listening: "Old Shelford is a beast!"
When the minister and Joanna had gone for their usual walk, Paul sat in the dining-room with his mother and her knitting, and played with her ball of wool, just as he had done when he was a little boy.
"My dear, where is Isabel Carnaby now?" asked Mrs. Seaton suddenly.
Paul winced, but he answered quietly: "She is still in town, and is to be married to Lord Wrexham, I believe, at the end of this season".
"I was very fond of Isabel."
"I know you were, mother; so was I."
"What sort of a man is Lord Wrexham?"
"He is the best type of an English gentleman."
"Then you think he will make Isabel happy?" said Mrs. Seaton, with a sigh of relief.
"I did not say that," replied Paul, dropping the ball of wool on the floor, and diving after it.
"Do you think he will make her happy?" persisted Mrs. Seaton.
Paul was silent for a moment before he answered: "Not as happy as I could have made her".
"He won't understand her, I suppose?"
"No."
"Oh! Paul, why did you ever let her go?"
"Because I was a poor man. If her marriage with me had involved no sacrifice on her part, I would have fought to the death rather than give her up; and I would have made her marry me in spite of everything, for I know I could have made her happy. But I could not force her to accept poverty after I had seen that she hung back."
"But love matters more to a woman than anything else; and she would rather be poor with the man she loves than be rich without him."
"I don't think that you and Joanna quite understand how much wealth and rank and things of that kind matter to a woman brought up as Isabel has been," said Paul, "to you, they are outside considerations which do not enter into your inner life at all; but to her, they are the very air she breathes."
"Then, do you mean to say that she could not be happy without them?"
"No, I don't; I think, on the contrary, that it is not in the nature of such things to make Isabel happy. But she would have to resign them of her own free will. I could hardly force her to sacrifice them because I happened to think that she could be happy without them—especially as my own happiness depended upon her sacrifice,"