There is no doubt that the troubles sent by Providence are always beneficial if taken in a proper spirit; but the troubles brought on by our own or another's ill-doing are not necessarily salutary at all. Therefore both Paul and Isabel were the worse for their separation.
Paul threw himself heart and soul into his work, and turned his back upon all the amenities of life. He had lost his faith in love and in his old ideals, and the loss was not good for him; he became morose and hard and cynical, and inclined to sneer at higher things. His love for Isabel had been so bound up with all that was best in him, that when Isabel failed, much of his best went with her—at any rate for the time being, till the first bitterness of the disillusionment was past.
As for Isabel, she put on a brave face before the world, and spent her days in laughter and her nights in tears. While Paul hid his misery under a mask of stern moroseness, she concealed hers under an affectation of frivolity. She had never seemed so gay or so heartless or so worldly; and, after a while, her imagination almost persuaded her that she cared as little as she pretended to care. She never allowed herself time to think, and she nearly succeeded in believing that she was really forgetting Paul; nevertheless she grew thinner and paler, and there was a wan look underneath her restless brilliancy that Lady Farley did not care to see.
Isabel never had any news of Paul; he had completely passed out of her life. But Paul managed to glean tidings of Isabel; and the news that she was more amusing and more admired than ever did not in any way lessen his misery.
Paul wrote a curt letter to his own people saying that Isabel had broken off the engagement, but giving no reason; and he begged that her name might never again be mentioned in his hearing. The minister was sorry, but felt that it was according to the decree of Providence; Mrs. Seaton was grieved, but feared that it was owing to the pride of Paul; and Joanna was angry, and felt sure that it was because of the vanity of Isabel. All of which suppositions were not without a foundation of truth.
Lady Farley tried hard not to be glad that the engagement was broken off; but she only succeeded in hiding her gladness from her niece. And she comforted Isabel—according to her lights—by taking her into society more untiringly than ever.
One night, towards the end of the season, there was a party at the Marchioness of Wallingford's; and Isabel was, as usual, surrounded by a small court of men. She was looking particularly well in a yellow gown, which suited her dark hair to perfection. Mr. Madderley, on learning from her in the Row that morning that yellow was to be her "only wear" at this party, had sent her a spray of yellow roses. But Isabel hated yellow roses; she had worn one in her belt the day that Paul made her go for a walk with him, and therefore—like Ben Jonson's "rosy wreath"—such flowers thenceforward smelt not of themselves but Paul. So she threw away the artist's gift, and would not touch it again.
"I suppose you will shortly be going down to Elton Manor, Miss Carnaby, and thereby turning London into a desert," said Lord Wrexham.
"No," replied Isabel. "I am not going to Elton, but to Homburg instead. I am getting too old for the country, do you know?"
"I cannot allow that," remonstrated his lordship.