"Then why are you rude to me, my dear Isabel? You don't seem to live up to your principles."
"I don't. A girl once told me that I should make a bad wife, a good friend, and a simply perfect acquaintance; and I believe she was right."
Paul smiled. "That is hardly a comforting prospect for me, but I mean to risk it nevertheless."
"You see," continued Isabel, who always enjoyed vivisecting herself, "I am awfully nice to people until I begin to care for them; then I become horrid. It is unfortunate, I admit, but nevertheless it is true."
"As I remarked before, I cannot commend your wisdom," said Paul, "I should pursue a precisely opposite course myself."
"You do," replied Isabel with generosity; "unlike me, you live up to your principles. When first I met you, I thought you rather stiff and difficult to get on with; talking to you was like walking up-hill or rowing up-stream; but now you grow more delightful every day, and more easy to talk to."
Paul looked pleased. "I certainly take more trouble to be nice to you than to anybody else."
"And you succeed beyond your wildest expectations. But I am quite different; as long as I really didn't care for you, I was able to be perfectly charming; I know I was."
"You both were and are," said Paul.
Isabel shook her head. "I know as well as ever the things I ought to say to you to please you, and a year ago I should have said them; but now my own feelings get in the way, and I want to say the things that please me; and so I cease to be charming."