"It wouldn't strike me in that light, but go on."
"Then it occurred to me that I would write a book which should convince Paul that I was a shallow, heartless woman of the world, and that I was incapable of really loving him or any other man. It was agony to my pride to feel that perhaps Paul had only cared for me because I was considered a good match; and I meant to turn the tables on him, and wound his pride, by making him believe that I had only been playing with him all the time just to amuse myself."
"A severe punishment on Paul for the freaks of your own imagination, my child!"
"All the time I was writing the book, I thought only of him and of how I could manage to hurt him. I did not care a straw whether the novel were a success or not, or whether anybody read it except Paul. But when it came out it made a hit, as you know, and everybody was talking about it."
"Yes; I remember."
"Though people thought it clever they did not really like it, and they said nasty things about the author."
Joanna nodded. Nobody knew better than she did the nasty things that had been said; yet she did not remove her caressing hand from the bent head.
"And then," continued Isabel, "I was in a perfect frenzy of fear lest they should find out that I had written it, and should begin to look shy at me. I cared so much for approval and admiration, that I thought it would kill me to be disapproved of as society disapproved of the author of Shams and Shadows. I used to lie awake at night wondering whatever I could do to put people off the scent."
"Well, and what happened then?"
"One day, when my terror was at its height, I heard that Paul had told Lord Robert Thistletown that he had taken the name of Angus Grey. I saw in a flash what that meant; it meant that the man, whom I had wounded and insulted, understood better even than I did what a disadvantage the authorship of Shams and Shadows would be to me; and had therefore shielded me at the expense of his own literary reputation, and had taken my punishment upon himself."