"It would be useless for you to pretend that you are not clever; nobody would be taken in. Clever as you are, you would not be clever enough for that."
"You don't know how clever I am," said Isabel; "I once succeeded in making a man think I was not clever."
"And what effect did the delusion have upon him?"
"He fell in love with me on the spot."
"Still he might have done that, even if he'd known you were clever," suggested Paul. "There is no limit, I believe, to the folly of the heart of man in affairs of this kind. I daresay he knew you were clever all the time, and was only a 'deceiver ever' when he pretended he thought you were not. Men will forgive even cleverness in a woman they really care for; you have no idea how weak they are."
"As long as the woman is not cleverer than they are themselves, I suppose."
"Of course; that goes without saying. Besides, no man is so supernaturally humble as to believe that the cleverest woman in the world is quite as clever as he is himself. He only knows that she is cleverer than all his friends."
"If ever I think a man is in danger of thinking me too clever," said Isabel meditatively, "I always ask him how to spell a word—any word will do, provided it is not too difficult for him. You can't think how it at once restores the equilibrium between the sexes. And if—in addition to spelling the word—he can give you its derivation, both the man and the scholar stand for ever vindicated."
"That's a good plan," said Paul, "a very good plan. Now that you mention it, I notice I have often felt distinct pleasure when a woman has asked me how to spell a word; and the pleasure has risen to pure joy when I have superadded the derivation."
"But you are wandering from the point," said Isabel reprovingly. "I was saying how I liked your stories, and you were saying that you weren't really clever."