"And what did she say? Was she angry with you?" inquired Miss Gordon.
"Not she; she merely laughed, and said she had drawn a beau at a venture, and it was therefore only a fancy portrait."
"Very smart again," murmured Mr. Kesterton approvingly. "Girls who can make jokes like that ought not to waste their time reeling out poetry as easily as if they were ravelling an old stocking. They should leave that to the dull, sentimental women, who wear their hearts on their sleeves and their curls down their backs."
"Was Lady Ambrose very furious at the poem?" asked Lady Esdaile. "It was just the sort of thing to make her mad if any one but a ladyship had written it."
"I don't think she ever saw it," replied Bobby, "but the bishop did, and enjoyed it immensely. He loves a joke, does the dear old bishop, and loves it all the more if his wife is out of it. I remember that she was described therein as 'a godly Venus, rising from the sea'; and my father has called Lady A. 'the godly Venus' ever since."
Mr. Kesterton chuckled appreciatively.
"What I can't stand is humbug," continued Lord Robert, "and when I see that woman ready to sell what she is pleased to call her soul for money and position and all that, and then hear her jawing against Mammon and worldliness and things of that sort, it makes me feel positively sick."
Paul smiled, and could not help thinking of Mrs. Martin. He remembered a tale he had once heard of some Staffordshire colliers who went to see the sights of London, and their surprise reached its height when one exclaimed: "I say, Bill, they've got the same old moon here as we've got at Tipton!" The sights of London are still very wonderful and well worth seeing; but they've got the same old human nature there as they've got at Tipton, and everywhere else under the sun.
That "week-end" was a season of perfect bliss to Paul; partly because he was in the company of some of the best-mannered and most brilliant people in England but principally because Isabel Carnaby was nice to him. He carried her prayer-book to church for her on Sunday morning, and the scent of Russia-leather sent a thrill through him all his life afterwards; while the sound of her voice in the hymns made those particular psalms stand out from the rest of Hymns Ancient and Modern for ever in Paul Seaton's ears.
On their way back from church, Isabel asked him if he had begun to write his book.