“A novel? Frivolous young woman! Oh, I know that book. It’s very nice, all but the ending, and that I don’t believe in. That extravagant self-sacrifice is unnatural; no man ever yet made such a sacrifice.”
“It doesn’t seem to me impossible,” said Ada. “No? It will some day.”
Isabel’s way of speaking was not altogether like herself; it was rather too direct and abrupt.
“Of a man, you think?”
Isabel laughed.
“Oh, of a woman much more! We are not so self-sacrificing as they make us out, Ada.” She took a seat on a chair which stood edgewise to the table, and rested her head against her hand.
“Will you sit down?” she asked invitingly, when the girl still kept her position at a distance.
“You wish to speak to me?”
Ada became seated where she was.
“You wish the distance to represent that which is always between us?” Isabel remarked, half sadly, half jestingly.