Paul looked surprised. "Why not? You said that you were."
"I daresay I did; but I have changed my mind."
"But why? It is such a lovely afternoon, and it is now cool enough for walking."
Isabel looked at Paul from under her long eyelashes. He had been disagreeable, and she felt it her duty to punish him; she was a strict disciplinarian where her lover was concerned, and never let her own feelings hinder her from giving him such chastisement as she thought needful. To do them justice, however, it is but fair to add that her feelings were very accommodating in this respect, and rarely attempted to stand between Paul and the consequences of his misdeeds; on the contrary, they rather enjoyed the fulfilment of the decrees of inexorable justice.
"I don't want to go out this afternoon, because Lord Wrexham said he might call," she replied.
Inexorable justice was satisfied. The sentence—if out of proportion to the crime—was exactly suited to the criminal. Isabel was a connoisseur in punishments.
The victim was silent for a moment, then he said: "You ought not to have made any engagement for this afternoon, after you had promised to go out with me; your time was not your own".
"I don't care whose it was; anyhow I mean to take it and use it as I like."
"But you have no right to."
Isabel laughed. "Bah! who talks about rights now-a-days? Nobody has really any right to anything, except sufficient earth to bury them. I shall do what I want."