Isabel Carnaby

“ Isabel laughed with delight. "I know exactly. And another evil and bitter thing is helping oneself to strawberries."
"When they are in a pyramid, you mean?" said Paul.
"Yes; and the strawberry at the apex of the pyramid suffers from suicidal tendencies; and is prone to hurl itself from its giddy height to perdition, if you so much as breathe."
Paul laughed.
"And its path to destruction," added Miss Carnaby, "leaves a lurid, crimson stain right across the hostess's tablecloth." ”

“ On the platform behind the minister's desk sat a row of sweet-faced Sisters of the Poor, in their plain black gowns and long grey veils; while again behind them came the band, and a crowd of "workers," filling the enormous platform of St. James's Hall up to the roof.
A less emotional woman than Isabel Carnaby would have been thrilled at the sound of a hymn sung by so vast a concourse of people, and at the sight of so large a number gathered together with one accord in one place ”

“ Martin's cook, because she passed the remark that you were the ugliest little girl she'd ever set eyes on; and now he is old enough to be taking to himself a wife. Time does fly, and no mistake!"
Joanna sighed. She was a good woman, and unselfish, but it is "a bitter thing to look into happiness through another man's eyes". "Isabel Carnaby is a lucky girl," she remarked; "for I am sure Paul is a man who will make any woman happy."
Martha shook her head. "Don't be too sure of anything about a man, miss—not even if it is our Paul. They are queer creatures, even the best of them!" ”

“ Tell me, dear, I want to know."
Alice thought for a moment. "I expect I should, for I have always adored the shape of your nose."
Edgar laughed, and Alice went on: "I used to be afraid that I bored you because I wasn't clever; but now you don't mind my not being clever a bit, do you?"
"My darling, I hate clever women; a woman is meant to be beautiful and good, and cleverness simply spoils her."
"Then don't you admire Isabel Carnaby?" ”

“ I hate girls of that age; they always say you are getting stout, and that your hair isn't all your own."
Paul concealed a smile. "Did she give the apple to Sir Benjamin?" he inquired.
"Yes; to my great relief. Sir Benjamin has got a governorship out in India, so Isabel has chosen to go on living with them. She is just the sort of girl to like being with 'Excellencies,' and all that sort of thing."
"What is Miss Carnaby like? Is she pretty?"
"Oh! no; not pretty, but smart and stylish, and knows how to put her clothes on. And she is dreadfully clever. ”

“ Like Horace Walpole, Lady Farley knew her world; and she had learned that it is when we fail, that a little flattery is beneficial to us; also, that we do not thank the friend who admires our excellencies, but for the stranger who openly exalts the strength of our weak places we reserve our undying devotion. So her ladyship was very complimentary to Isabel just then.
The first Sunday afternoon after Isabel's return, Edgar Ford called at the Farleys'; and, after a few customary banalities, Miss Carnaby inquired how the Seatons were getting on. ”

“ Isabel did not answer, and Joanna continued: "When people come to where I am now, they look at life so differently from how they used to look when the end of the road was not in sight; and they see that the things which once seemed important are trivial, and the things which once seemed trivial are the only things that matter. When you stand where I am standing, you won't care a scrap whether your pride and your self-respect received their due; but you will care infinitely whether you and Paul are together, or whether you will have to go down into the dark valley all alone." ”

“ Trim the shrubs and mow the grass,
Roll the alleys shady,
Make the ways where she will pass
Fitter for my lady.
There was a large house-party at Vernacre Park at Easter, to meet Miss Carnaby, who had just become engaged to the host, Lord Wrexham. Old Lady Wrexham played the part of hostess—a most stately and chilly dame, whom Isabel could not endure; and, in addition to the party from Elton, the company included the Esdailes, Lord Robert Thistletown and Mr. Madderley, besides sundry, uneventful persons, whom nobody took the trouble to differentiate. ”

“ You might as well have taken the trouble to inform me that you were not swimming, or painting, or driving a cab."
"It really isn't kind of you to go on like this, Miss Carnaby."
"And it really isn't kind of you to spoil such a lovely afternoon by speaking seriously."
Paul did not answer, so Isabel rattled on: "Now you are sulking, and if there is one thing I hate more than another it is a sulky temper. I'd rather have a squint than a sulky temper any day. Besides, dark men should never look sulky, it isn't becoming to them; it gives a lurid, thundery sort of expression to their faces." ”

“ Feelings that last, take a good deal out of you I have discovered; the really delicious sort are those that you think will last for ever and that you know won't," said Isabel.
"I am afraid, my dear girl, that you are becoming an epicure in emotions," remarked Paul, who had just come in.
"I know I am; an election, supervening on a love-affair, is enough to intoxicate any woman, especially when the beloved object and the candidate are one. You can't think what glorious thrills I have all down my back when the crowds applaud you. ”

“ Prettiness is so much more important."
"I suppose beauty is the best gift for a woman to possess," said Paul; "but there are clever women and clever women; and Miss Carnaby seems—from your description—to be exactly the sort of clever woman that I specially detest."
Lady Esdaile shook her head. "Men don't generally detest her," she confessed, "she is a man's woman out and out. And she is a woman's woman too," she added; "she really can make herself awfully pleasant if she likes, and she has a wonderful knack of getting on with anybody. ”

“ Human nature can only stand a certain strain; and social rudeness stretches this elasticity to its uttermost limit, if not beyond it.
Mrs. Martin opened the ball by calling upon Isabel, decked out in her Sunday best.
"I am so glad to meet you, my dear Miss Carnaby," she began, addressing herself pointedly to Isabel, and coolly excluding Mrs. Seaton and Joanna from the conversation, "I feel sure we shall be friends, for your dear aunt's sake. ”

“ Isabel opened her blue eyes very wide. "You don't have to make love to him for three hours and more at a stretch, or you would not talk about him in that careless and happy way. I confess that the excellent man's wealth and rank and virtue are unequalled—save, perhaps, by his dulness; but, believe me, there is only one thing on earth more fatiguing than talking to Wrexham, and that is listening to him. Take this as a wrinkle from one who knows."
"You should adapt yourself to him, my dear; it does not do for a man to know that a woman is cleverer than he is." ”

“ Isabel—with her fatal aptitude for taking her tone from her surroundings—was as earthly in London as she had been heavenly at Chayford; that is to say, the outward and visible Isabel was; and poor Paul, with all his love for her, as yet lacked the wisdom to understand her thoroughly. It always seems a pity, with regard to lovemaking, that when people are old enough to have learnt the game properly, they are generally too old to want to play at it. ”

“ Isabel was wrong when she said that her lover had no idea that he bored her. It may be easy for a woman to throw dust in the eyes of the men who only admire her; but the men who love her see too clearly to be blinded by any paltry artifice, and frequently suffer accordingly. Lord Wrexham knew that he bored Isabel, and the knowledge well-nigh broke his heart; but he could no more help boring her than he could help breathing. He made mistakes in his dealings with her, and frequently said the wrong thing; therefore Isabel was hard upon him. Friendship may pardon our misdeeds ”

“ But no mortal is wise at all times—not even when the mortal happens to be a woman; and this was a time of unwisdom on Isabel's part.
"Paul is too sure of your love," whispered Isabel's evil genius, "now that you are always nice to him he takes your niceness as a matter of course."
"Paul is right to be sure of my love," replied Isabel's better self, "it is a poor trick to try to enhance the value of anything by pretending that its existence is precarious."
"There is no good in having power if you never use it," argued the evil genius. ”

“ The officers of the Household entered walking backwards, and all the company rose to their feet as the orchestra struck up the National Anthem. Finally the Royalties themselves appeared and bowed to their assembled guests, while the ladies curtsied in response, till the room looked like a cornfield when a summer breeze goes by.
When everybody was seated, Isabel whispered to Lord Wrexham: "I do love anything in the shape of a function; it gives me a thrill all down my back. Do you ever have thrills down your back?" ”

“ And before Isabel could answer him he was gone.
"Always one man's heart and hand waiting for me, even when I grow old and horrid," she said to herself through her tears, "and he never even remembered that there was Vernacre and a coronet as well. How good he is, and what a gentleman!"
During the next few weeks Isabel devoted herself to the comforting of Violet Esdaile, who accepted the consolation with the egotism of youth, never noticing that the heart of the comforter was even heavier than her own. ”

“ But I could not force her to accept poverty after I had seen that she hung back."
"But love matters more to a woman than anything else; and she would rather be poor with the man she loves than be rich without him."
"I don't think that you and Joanna quite understand how much wealth and rank and things of that kind matter to a woman brought up as Isabel has been," said Paul, "to you, they are outside considerations which do not enter into your inner life at all; but to her, they are the very air she breathes." ”

“ It is simply fiendish to throw a woman's nose in her teeth in that fashion."
"Poor Isabel!"
"I always envy the women with good noses more than I can express," continued Miss Carnaby, leaning back in her chair and gazing thoughtfully up to the ceiling; "eyes grow dim and teeth depart and figures increase, but a good nose is an abiding resting-place for your vanity. You know that it will last out your time, whatever happens; and that age cannot wither nor custom stale its satisfactory proportions."
"That is so," agreed Lady Farley, tenderly stroking her own perfect little aquiline. ”

“ The only conclusion it is never safe to arrive at in dealing with a woman is the only logical one."
"Which do you like best—me or mathematics?"
"My dear child, what an absurd question!"
"Which do you?" persisted Isabel.
Paul grew serious. "When I was at Oxford I liked classics better than mathematics, and rowing better than both of them; after I left the 'Varsity, I began to care about power and success and fame more than about rowing; now I love you more than power and success and fame put together, with all the kingdoms of the world thrown in." ”

“ Paul smiled scornfully. "Not the men who have loved you as I love you," he said.
"Other men love me as much as you do," persisted Isabel.
"Then let them love you, and let me go," replied Paul roughly. "I may be poor and obscure, and a nobody in your world, but I'm a man all the same, and I'll let no fine lady make a plaything of me."
"You are very unkind!"
"I am very unhappy."
Isabel pouted. "It is your own fault if you are. I'm sure I am nice enough to you to please the most exacting man."
"But I don't thank you for mere niceness. Can't you understand? ”

“ Isabel shrugged her shoulders. "I think it rather lies in the fact that in drinking the draught of life we soon get through the white froth on the top and come to the small beer underneath."
"Well, I like Sunday evenings and hymns and things in that line," persisted Lord Bobby. "I even go to the length of liking Christmas Day."
"A man who can like Christmas Day will drink sweet champagne and enjoy it," remarked Madderley.
Lord Bobby shook his head. "Oh! I won't go that far."
"Now I, on the contrary," said Isabel, "cannot bear Christmas Day; it is neither one thing nor another." ”

“ Paul looked very stern. "Do you really mean that?"
By this time Isabel had lashed herself into a perfect fury. "Yes, I do mean it; you are so proud and self-centred that you only care for what enhances your own importance. You are pleased to be engaged to a smart woman, because it reflects credit on yourself; but for the feelings of the woman underneath her smartness, you don't care a rap." ”

“ Isabel said; "I shall go 'where the bachelors sit, and there live as merry as the day is long'. I shall say, 'Please reserve the place next to Mr. Paul Seaton for me'; and if I find it already occupied, there will be unpleasantness, and I shall contest the seat."
"You are very brilliant to-day." And Paul looked at her proudly. She was worth looking at just then, as she had dressed herself entirely in blue, the Liberal colour in Chayford; and a woman always looks her best when her gown is of the same shade as her eyes. ”

“ Isabel shook her head sorrowfully, though she was really enjoying herself immensely. "It is very wrong and horrid and so like a man. I believe the reason why Paradise was Paradise to Adam was because he was the only man on the ground."
"Very probably; and the old Adam is so strong in me—in spite of your remarks to the contrary—that I mean to be the only man on the ground, too."
"You've got a horrid temper, Paul; you are like the man who always quarrelled with people till they liked him. You will never make anybody do what you want, if you go on in that way." ”