"Not at all; I quite grasp your meaning," said his lordship graciously, "though I am not yet sure that I concur with it."
"If art is an integral part of a good education, as Mr. Seaton asserts," remarked Mr. Kesterton, "we shall have to spend more money on public picture-galleries; and how the Exchequer of the future will stand it, goodness only knows. I am thankful to think that by that time I shall be where budgets cease from troubling."
"I am going to write an article for The Pendulum on love as education—a sort of opposition shop to Mr. Seaton's school of art," said Isabel Carnaby. "There is really nothing so admirable from an educational point of view as the process known as 'falling in love'; and I consider that a Government that makes education compulsory, ought to insist upon every one's falling in love at least once before he or she is five-and-twenty. I should call it 'passing the seventh standard,' seven being the perfect number, you know."
"A capital idea, my dear young lady!" said Mr. Kesterton graciously, for Isabel always amused him. "Should you erect special schools for the purpose, may I ask?"
"Yes, gorgeous red and white palaces, like the board-schools; and they would be called 'Highest Grade Schools,' and I should superintend them myself."
"And no one better qualified! Is it impertinent to ask if you would combine the office of object with that of instructress?"
"Not necessarily. Of course it is better for men to fall in love with me than with any one else—teaches them more, I mean, and bores them less. But I shouldn't make it a sine quâ non. I should advise it, but not insist upon it. If they preferred to do so, the pupils might fall in love with somebody else; but it would be like learning literary style from The Polite Letter Writer, instead of from the classics."
"I should undertake the girls' department," cried Lord Robert, "it is more than a liberal education to a woman to fall in love with me—it includes all the extras, and a year's finishing abroad into the bargain."
Isabel shook her head. "I'm not so sure about that."
"It is so. When a girl falls in love with me, she realizes at once that brains and beauty and wealth are mere worthless and vulgar attributes; but that a heart of gold, beating under a pocket of very small silver, is the only thing really worthy of a woman's regard. This has a most elevating and refining effect on their dear little characters, bless 'em! It has indeed! Therefore I shall put aside my constitutional shyness, and undertake the girls' department of the 'Highest Grade School'."