‘To yourself for instance?’ Isabel suggested jocosely. And then, ‘Do you really believe it will ruin me?’ she asked in quite another tone.

‘I hope it won’t ruin you; but it will certainly confirm your dangerous tendencies.’

‘Do you mean the love of luxury—of extravagance?’

‘No, no,’ said Henrietta; ‘I mean your exposure on the moral side. I approve of luxury; I think we ought to be as elegant as possible. Look at the luxury of our western cities; I’ve seen nothing over here to compare with it. I hope you’ll never become grossly sensual; but I’m not afraid of that. The peril for you is that you live too much in the world of your own dreams. You’re not enough in contact with reality—with the toiling, striving, suffering, I may even say sinning, world that surrounds you. You’re too fastidious; you’ve too many graceful illusions. Your newly-acquired thousands will shut you up more and more to the society of a few selfish and heartless people who will be interested in keeping them up.’

Isabel’s eyes expanded as she gazed at this lurid scene. ‘What are my illusions?’ she asked. ‘I try so hard not to have any.’

‘Well,’ said Henrietta, ‘you think you can lead a romantic life, that you can live by pleasing yourself and pleasing others. You’ll find you’re mistaken. Whatever life you lead you must put your soul in it—to make any sort of success of it; and from the moment you do that it ceases to be romance, I assure you: it becomes grim reality! And you can’t always please yourself; you must sometimes please other people. That, I admit, you’re very ready to do; but there’s another thing that’s still more important—you must often displease others. You must always be ready for that—you must never shrink from it. That doesn’t suit you at all—you’re too fond of admiration, you like to be thought well of. You think we can escape disagreeable duties by taking romantic views—that’s your great illusion, my dear. But we can’t. You must be prepared on many occasions in life to please no one at all—not even yourself.’

Isabel shook her head sadly; she looked troubled and frightened. ‘This, for you, Henrietta,’ she said, ‘must be one of those occasions!’

It was certainly true that Miss Stackpole, during her visit to Paris, which had been professionally more remunerative than her English sojourn, had not been living in the world of dreams. Mr Bantling, who had now returned to England, was her companion for the first four weeks of her stay; and about Mr Bantling there was nothing dreamy. Isabel learned from her friend that the two had led a life of great personal intimacy and that this had been a peculiar advantage to Henrietta, owing to the gentleman’s remarkable knowledge of Paris. He had explained everything, shown her everything, been her constant guide and interpreter. They had breakfasted together dined together, gone to the theatre together, supped together, really in a manner quite lived together. He was a true friend, Henrietta more than once assured our heroine; and she had never supposed that she could like any Englishman so well. Isabel could not have told you why, but she found something that ministered to mirth in the alliance the correspondent of the Interviewer had struck with Lady Pensil’s brother; her amusement moreover subsisted in face of the fact that she thought it a credit to each of them. Isabel couldn’t rid herself of a suspicion that they were playing somehow at cross-purposes—that the simplicity of each had been entrapped. But this simplicity was on either side none the less honourable. It was as graceful on Henrietta’s part to believe that Mr Bantling took an interest in the diffusion of lively journalism and in consolidating the position of lady-correspondents as it was on the part of his companion to suppose that the cause of the Interviewer—a periodical of which he never formed a very definite conception—was, if subtly analysed (a task to which Mr Bantling felt himself quite equal), but the cause of Miss Stackpole’s need of demonstrative affection. Each of these groping celibates supplied at any rate a want of which the other was impatiently conscious. Mr Bantling, who was of rather a slow and a discursive habit, relished a prompt, keen, positive woman, who charmed him by the influence of a shining, challenging eye and a kind of bandbox freshness, and who kindled a perception of raciness in a mind to which the usual fare of life seemed unsalted. Henrietta, on the other hand, enjoyed the society of a gentleman who appeared somehow, in his way, made, by