Isabel looked at her companion in much wonderment; it struck her as strange that a nature in which she found so much to esteem should break down so in spots. ‘My poor Henrietta,’ she said, ‘you’ve no sense of privacy.’

Henrietta coloured deeply, and for a moment her brilliant eyes were suffused, while Isabel found her more than ever inconsequent. ‘You do me great injustice,’ said Miss Stackpole with dignity. I’ve never written a word about myself!’

‘I’m very sure of that; but it seems to me one should be modest for others also!’

‘Ah, that’s very good!’ cried Henrietta, seizing her pen again. ‘Just let me make a note of it and I’ll put it somewhere.’ She was a thoroughly good-natured woman, and half an hour later she was in as cheerful a mood as should have been looked for in a newspaper-lady in want of matter. ‘I’ve promised to do the social side,’ she said to Isabel; ‘and how can I do it unless I get ideas? If I can’t describe this place don’t you know some place I can describe?’ Isabel promised she would bethink herself, and the next day, in conversation with her friend, she happened to mention her visit to Lord Warburton’s ancient house. ‘Ah, you must take me there—that’s just the place for me!’ Miss Stackpole cried. ‘I must get a glimpse of the nobility.’

‘I can’t take you,’ said Isabel; ‘but Lord Warburton’s coming here, and you’ll have a chance to see him and observe him. Only if you intend to repeat his conversation I shall certainly give him warning.’

‘Don’t do that,’ her companion pleaded; ‘I want him to be natural.’

‘An Englishman’s never so natural as when he’s holding his tongue,’ Isabel declared.

It was not apparent, at the end of three days, that her cousin had, according to her prophecy, lost his heart to their visitor, though he had spent a good deal of time in her society. They strolled about the park together and sat under the trees, and in the afternoon, when it was delightful to float along the Thames, Miss Stackpole occupied a place in the boat in which hitherto Ralph had had but a single companion. Her presence proved somehow less irreducible to soft particles than Ralph had expected in the natural perturbation of his sense of the perfect solubility of that of his cousin; for the correspondent of the Interviewer prompted mirth in him, and he had long since decided that the crescendo of mirth should be the flower of his declining days. Henrietta, on her side, failed a little to justify Isabel’s declaration with regard to her indifference to masculine opinion; for poor Ralph appeared to have presented himself to her as an irritating problem, which it would be almost immoral not to work out.

‘What does he do for a living?’ she asked of Isabel the evening of her arrival. ‘Does he go round all day with his hands in his pockets?’

‘He does nothing,’ smiled Isabel; ‘he’s a gentleman of large leisure.’

‘Well, I call that a shame—when I have to work like a car-conductor,’¹ Miss Stackpole replied. ‘I should like to show him up.’

‘He’s in wretched health; he’s quite unfit for work,’ Isabel urged.

‘Pshaw! don’t you believe it. I work when I’m sick,’ cried her friend. Later, when she stepped into the boat on joining the waterparty, she remarked to Ralph that she supposed he hated her and would like to drown her.

‘Ah no,’ said Ralph, ‘I keep my victims for a slower torture. And you’d be such an interesting one!’

‘Well, you do torture me; I may say that. But I shock all your prejudices; that’s one comfort.’

‘My prejudices? I haven’t a prejudice to bless myself with. There’s intellectual poverty for you.’