"Now where I find men so difficult as friends," said Isabel, "is that they never will tell you why they are vexed. When a man is out of temper there is no secret about it—he who runs may read, and she who reads had better run away; but the reason for this vexation is kept a profound secret."
"You are quite right there," agreed Lady Farley; "it is an interesting but inexplicable fact. A woman is different; she will probably not show at all that she is annoyed, but if she shows it she will tell you the why and the wherefore."
"That is quite true; my experience of the sex is that when they are angry they do not err on the side of want of frankness," sighed Lord Robert.
"And then men are so jealous and exacting," continued Isabel, "that is where they disgust me."
The artist looked at Isabel curiously, as if by the outward eye he could discover whether she were as heartless as she pretended to be; but her appearance afforded him no clue to the problem. "A man who irritates a woman by showing his jealousy, and destroys her pleasure by such evil tempers, is a fool—and worse than a fool," he said.
"Oh! not worse than a fool."
"You are pleased to be merciful, Miss Carnaby."
"Because there is nothing worse," she added.
"I quite agree with you," said Madderley, "but some men seem to regard all things as patent or copyright, which is manifestly absurd; and men in love are worse in this respect than Platonic friends."
Isabel went on with her lunch while the artist continued: "If a clergyman or a doctor is not able—owing to absence or illness—to do his work, he supplies a locum tenens to take his place. And he is grateful to—instead of offended with—the latter for so doing. Then why cannot a lover pursue the same course, and with the same 'sweet reasonableness,' I want to know?"