'Clara is obliged,' said Louis, with undetected irony, but secret wonder at the dexterity with which the patronage must have been administered so as not to have made the interesting family fly off at a tangent.
Isabel made her appearance in her almost constant morning dress of soft dove-coloured merino entirely unadorned, and looking more like a maiden in a romance than ever. She had just left Adeline standing on the steps of a stone cross, exhorting the Provencals to arm against a descent of Moorish corsairs, and she held out her hand to Fitzjocelyn much as Adeline did, when the fantastic Viscount professed his intention of flying instead of fighting, and wanted her to sit behind him on his courser.
Lady Conway pronounced her council complete, and propounded the fete which she wished to give on the 12th of January in honour of Louisa's birthday. Isabel took up a pencil, and was lost in sketching wayside crosses, and vessels with lateen sails, only throwing in a word or two here and there when necessary. Dancing was still, Lady Conway feared, out of the question with Fitzjocelyn.
'And always will be, I suspect. So much for my bargain with Clara to dance with her at her first ball!'
'You like dancing?' exclaimed Isabel, rejoiced to find another resemblance to the fantastic Viscount.
'Last year's Yeomanry ball was the best fun in the world!'
'There, Isabel,' said Lady Conway, 'you ought to be gratified to find a young man candid enough to allow that he likes it! But since that cannot be, I must find some other plan—'
'What cannot be?' exclaimed Louis. 'You don't mean to omit the dancing—'
'It could not be enjoyed without you. Your cousins and friends could not bear to see you sitting down—'
Isabel's lips were compressed, and the foam of her waves laughed scornfully under her pencil.