"Be human, Norman!" says Lady Baltimore, with a sudden suspicion of fire in her tone. "Forget to pose once in a way. And this time it is important. Let me hear the truth from you. She seems unhappy, uncertain, nervous. I like her. There is something real, genuine, about her. I would gladly think, that——Do you know," she leans towards him, "I have sometimes thought you were in love with her."
"Have you? Do you know, so have I," with a frankness very admirable. "She is one of the most agreeable girls of my acquaintance. There is something very special about her. I'm not surprised that both you and I fell into a conclusion of that sort."
"Am I to understand by that——?"
"Just one thing. I am too poor to marry."
"With that knowledge in your mind, you should not have acted towards her as you did yesterday. It was a mistake, believe me. You should have come home alone, or else brought her back as your promised wife."
"Ah! what a delightful vista you open up before me, but what an unkind one, too," says Mr. Beauclerk, with a little reproachful uplifting of his hands and brows. "Have you no bowels of compassion? You know how the charms of domestic life have always attracted me. And to be able to enjoy them with such an admirable companion as Miss Kavanagh! Are you soulless, utterly without mercy, Isabel, that you open up to me a glorious vision such as that merely to taunt and disappoint me?"
"I am neither Joyce nor Miss Maliphant," says Lady Baltimore, with ill-suppressed contempt. "I wish you would try to remember that, Norman; it would spare time and trouble. You speak of Joyce as if she were the woman you love, and yet—would you subject the woman you love to unkind comment? If you cared you would not have treated her as——"
"Ah, if I did care for her," interrupts he.
"Well, don't you?" sternly.
She has risen, and is looking down at him from the full height of her tall, slender figure, that now looks taller than usual.