So Paul told the old lady about Isabel and Joanna and their life at Davos, and about his work in London, and his hope that he and Isabel would be married some time during the year then beginning; while Miss Drusilla listened with the greatest interest, and made her usual long-winded comments.
At last she said, "I feel that I owe it to you, my dear young friend, to offer some explanation of the fact of my so specially desiring to see your face once more, and of my venturing to put you to the trouble and fatigue of a journey from London, by the oracular expression of this desire on my part."
"It is a pleasure rather than a trouble," said Paul kindly, "it was very good of you to want to see me and I was very pleased to come." But all the same he really was surprised, as naturally Miss Dallicot had never been a special friend of his.
"The fact of the matter is," continued the little spinster, "you bear a strong facial resemblance to some one for whom I entertained a warm regard a considerable number of years ago. I daresay to your sound and vigorous judgment an accidental physical likeness appears a somewhat unsound basis for interest or attachment; but the fact remains that it does form such a basis in my case, though I should agree with you that from an intellectual standpoint the position is untenable."
"Oh! I can understand as much as that; for actually I once held a poor woman's baby for her while she scrambled up to the top of a London omnibus—and an extremely unattractive and unfanciable little brat it was—simply because the woman looked tired, and her eyes reminded me of Isabel's."
"Dear me, how very interesting! I trust that you informed Miss Carnaby of this somewhat romantic incident, as it would surely have proved most gratifying to her."
"Oh! no, it wouldn't; she would have been dreadfully hurt at being considered to resemble the middle-aged wife of an impecunious artisan. Women are never pleased at being thought like anybody who isn't well dressed, I have discovered. I remember Isabel was quite angry once when I showed her a peasant girl by Greuze, and said it reminded me of her; and she told me that if I'd said she was like a fashion-plate she should have been far better pleased—and she really would," added Paul, laughing at the remembrance.
"The feminine mind has certainly some strange inconsistencies," murmured Miss Drusilla, unconsciously straightening her cap.
"Of course it has; that is why it is so fascinating. I would not give a fig for a woman who had no bewitching little vanities. And the funny thing is that they are not vain of the things which really are a credit to them, but of the things which are a credit to their dressmakers. Now, take Isabel; she is awfully pleased with herself when she has got a new frock on, but she never knows that it is her figure which makes the frock look so well; and she thinks far more about the colour of her gowns than about the colour of her eyes."
(But here Paul was mistaken.)