CHAPTER VII.

Isabel Carnaby.

The little blind god, as he softly trod, Did a dart for his bow prepare; And he sharpened it with a woman's wit, And he feathered it with her hair.

When Paul had been four years at Esdaile Court, and Dick was considered nearly ready for Eton, the Farleys' term of Indian governorship came to an end, and they returned to England bringing their niece with them. As Lady Esdaile had predicted, Isabel had failed to make a brilliant marriage out in India; but whether that were her fault or her misfortune, Isabel alone (with the exception of two or three young officers who were still too sore to refer to the subject) could say.

To Paul's horror, the Anglo-Indian trio came to stay at Esdaile, and he was appointed to take Miss Carnaby in to dinner on the night of her arrival. He disliked all he had heard of the girl, and he made up his mind to snub her as much as was compatible with good manners, and not to allow her to fall into the error of imagining for one moment that he would ever be dragged captive at her chariot-wheels.

The Farley party had arrived only just in time to dress; and the drawing-room was already half full of county magnates and their attendant wives, when Sir Benjamin and his two ladies came in.

Sir Benjamin was short and stout, and her ladyship was tall and thin; she evidently possessed the remains of striking beauty, which he--as evidently--did not. Isabel followed them with an air of perfect assurance that somehow irritated Paul; she really was not good-looking enough to give herself such airs, he thought; for he was as yet too unlearned to know that her gown was fresh from Paris, and was the very acme of the prevailing fashion.

"Let me present you to Miss Carnaby," said Lady Esdaile's voice. "Isabel, this is Mr. Seaton, who will take you in to dinner."

Paul prepared himself to meet a fellow-Greek, and to return Miss Carnaby's bow as superciliously as she made it; but he was completely taken aback when she held out a friendly little ungloved hand, saying: "I'm so awfully pleased to meet you, Mr. Seaton! Dick tells me that you can blow birds' eggs better than any man he knows; and a past-master in any art is always interesting to me."

"It is very kind of you to say so, Miss Carnaby." Paul was still a little stiff. He certainly had some excuse for feeling annoyed; he had armed himself to rebuff airs and graces, and here was the most natural girl he had ever met in his life. He felt that even Joanna and Alice would seem affected beside her, she was so perfectly at her ease.

"I'm so glad you are taking me in to dinner," she continued, as the whole party trooped dining-room-wards; "all the other men in the room are so old. And I'm dreadfully tired of going in to dinner with my extreme seniors. Would you believe it? One week--since we came home--the united ages of the men who took me in to dinner amounted to three hundred. I looked in _Debrett_, and added them up."

Paul thawed sufficiently to smile. "That was rather rough on you!"

"It was simply unbearable. They would explain things to me, and try to instruct me. And they ran to anecdotes and statistics at the slightest provocation. One told me of all the reductions in rent he'd made to his tenants during the last twenty years; and another gave me such an exhaustive description of every attack of gout he'd ever suffered, that I could write a biography of that man's big toe."

"Nevertheless I hope you showed a teachable spirit in listening to them."

"Oh! yes. I didn't really listen, but I kept counting a hundred and then saying, 'How very interesting'. And then counting another hundred, and saying it again. You can't think what a good idea it was. It was like my aunt's plan of counting imaginary geese to send yourself to sleep; which, by the way, always keeps me awake the whole night."

"I know. My mother favours that plan too, but she always call them sheep. She makes them go through a gate, she says; I tried it once, but my gate kept swinging-to and squeezing the sheep, till I was quite wild with anxiety and consequently more wakeful than ever."

Isabel laughed. "But I punished my last old gentleman," she said.

"What did you do?"

"When I found that my partner for Saturday's dinner was older than any of his predecessors, my usually amiable spirit rebelled."

"And what form did the rebellion take?"

"I discovered that by breathing hard, when my old gentleman wasn't looking, I could make the candle-shade in front of us catch fire whenever I liked. So when there came any course that he was particularly keen on, I blew with my mouth, and the shade blazed. My poor partner had to save the women and children by extinguishing the fire; and while he was engaged in this act of heroism, the footman--thinking he had finished--removed his plate, and he saw its dainties no more."

Paul laughed outright.

"Have you ever noticed," asked Isabel, as the plates were being changed, "that the bit of toast underneath a _hors d'œuvre_--which, mark you, is appointed to be cut by a little silver fork--is always of a consistency which would defy a steam-hammer?"

"Is it?"

"Invariably; and therefore the little silver fork is usually bent or broken, while the piece of toast springs unscratched into the air and lands upon the carpet."

"You speak feelingly," said Paul.

"I have learnt in suffering what I teach in ordinary conversation. The fish-fork is also a source of much distress to me."

"How is that? It never strikes me as an instrument of destruction."

"Well, you see, it is in this way," explained Miss Carnaby. "Some people have fish-forks as well as fish-knives--sort of half-bred dessert-forks, don't you know? with ivory handles. Now, we don't have these at home--we use ordinary silver forks, so I am not prepared for them."

"I see; they take you unawares."

"Precisely. The consequence is I use a common fork for my fish; and then, when I get to the second _entrée_, my sin finds me out, and I am left with nothing on my hands but a large knife and this nasty little half-caste dessert-fork."

"Whatever do you do?" asked the amused Paul.

"I fling myself upon the mercy of the man who has taken me in; and I confess I have never found my confidence misplaced. He invariably gives me his own silver fork, and, if he is a brave man, asks one of the footmen for another for himself; but if he is only of a normal courage, he eats his own _entrée_ with my fish-fork, in shame and confusion of face."

"You might write a book on the Sorrows of Dining," suggested Paul.

"So I could; at least you and I could do it together."

Paul could not help feeling flattered, though he tried his hardest not. "I should describe what I have suffered at the hands of an undermined jelly," he said. "Don't you know the horrid, insinuating way the thing has of curtsying to you; and--when you respond to its inviting attitude--of flinging itself bodily upon your neck, and burying yourself and it in the common ruins?"

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."

"Like Tennyson's 'Maud,'" said Paul, "when

Her feet had touched the meadows, And left the daisies rosy."

Isabel smiled. "What an apt quotation!"

Paul looked pleased. "I think our treatise upon the Sorrows of Dining promises to be a success," he said.

"What a pretty girl Violet has grown!" remarked Isabel, looking down the table at her cousin.

"Yes; and so like her mother," agreed Paul.

"Is she in love with anybody yet, do you think?"

Now Paul had a strong suspicion that a certain Lord Robert Thistletown and Violet were by no means indifferent to each other; but he was not going to gossip about the Esdailes, even to Isabel, so he said discreetly: "I'm sure I can't say. She would not be very likely to confide in me even if she were."

"I suppose not. But an author like you ought to discover love stories without having to be told them, like some people discover water by means of hazel twigs."

Paul smiled. "I am not an author yet," he said.

"But, joking apart, you really write a good deal, don't you, Mr. Seaton? Uncle Richard tells me that the delightful and fascinating short stories signed P.S., which one comes across now and again in various magazines, are yours."

"They are certainly mine, Miss Carnaby; but I am afraid that their delightfulness and fascination exist only in your rose-coloured imagination."

"Don't be foolish! Every one thinks they are splendid. You must know you are clever, and I call it affectation for people to pretend they don't recognize their own good points. Now I, for instance, never pretend that I'm not clever. If I'd had my choice I'd rather have been pretty, I confess; but that is neither here nor there."

"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."

"Excuse me, Miss Carnaby, you are inaccurate; what I said, or intended to say, was that I thought I was so clever that I ought to do something better than write such stories as those. Humility is not one of my many virtues, as you will perceive as you come to know me better."

"It isn't one of mine, either."

"No; I'd already perceived that, though I have only known you for half an hour."

Isabel laughed. "You are very candid."

"Candour has a place, I am glad to say, in my _répertoire_ of excellencies. I derive much pleasure from the exercise of it myself, and as no one takes any notice of my opinion, it really doesn't do any harm."

"I suppose you feel you ought to write a big book, instead of sticking to short stories?"

"I should like to write a big book," replied Paul.

"Well, I am sure you can, and therefore I am sure you will."

Paul looked at the speaker appreciatively. "It is true that if a man can write a book he will do it sooner or later; but how did you come to know a thing like that?"

"I can't tell. I knew it of myself without being told. I always say that writing is like flirting; if you can't do it, nobody can teach you to do it; and if you can do it, nobody can keep you from doing it."

Paul smiled. "You are quite right. If I don't write a book it will prove that I can't write a book. But, all the same, I hope and believe I can."

"I'm afraid I must talk a bit to the man on my other side," said Isabel. "I don't want to, but he keeps clearing his throat like a clock that is going to strike, and I cannot any longer disregard the sign."

"I suppose I also ought to exchange pleasure for duty, and endeavour to converse with the old lady on my left."

"You ought to change new lamps for old, you mean," suggested Isabel. "Allow me to express a hope that the old one will be as brilliant as the new."

"It is unwise to hope for impossibilities, and generally leads to disappointment," replied Paul.

After Paul and Isabel had duly fulfilled their duty to their neighbours, Isabel said: "You mustn't be in too great a hurry to begin your book. Experience, as well as genius, is required for the writing of books."

"That is very true, and that is why I am waiting. I don't want to seem conceited, but I am speaking candidly to you now, and I feel and know I have the power to write what would be worth reading. But where I am weak is in the experience of life. I have always lived in a small world, and small worlds--though perhaps the most comfortable places of residence--are not good training-grounds or seminaries of learning."

"My experience is that small worlds and big worlds are pretty much alike," replied Isabel. "I have lived in both, and I don't see much difference."

"I don't mean that small worlds are really less interesting than big ones. Human nature is, of course, the same in both; and it is human nature that is the most interesting thing in life. As you say, the deeper things are the same in small worlds as in great ones, but their outer aspects differ in different cases; and the more cases one sees, the wider are one's sympathies."

"But seeing a lot of people is not knowing them," objected Isabel. "We are all more or less like the Man in the Iron Mask, and take abundant pains to hide our real faces from our fellows."

"Which we have no right to do, in my opinion. We are not bound to lay our souls bare for every one to look at, but as much as we do show ought to be part of our real selves, and not a mask to put people off the scent. It seems to me that to take the trouble to conceal ourselves, argues an exaggerated idea of our own importance."

"Which reminds me," said Isabel, "of a funny old man we once met at a _table d'hôte_; he told us in strict confidence that he was the mayor of Little Pettifog, but begged us not to mention it again as he was travelling incog."

Paul laughed. "A most happy instance! It seems to me that there are a good many mayors of Little Pettifog travelling _incog._; don't you think so?"

"Yes, I do; and--like you--I have no patience with them."

"But, on the other hand," said Paul, "I think it is, as a rule, our own fault if people behave like the Man in the Iron Mask with us, and proves that we are the same. Don't you think that the world is a very fair mirror, and that people treat us very much as we treat them?"

"Certainly; and if you are single-minded towards your friends, and think more of what is due to them than to you, they in turn will be single-minded towards you, and think more of what is due to you than to themselves. At least, that has been my experience so far."

"And mine too."

"And in the same way if you are time-serving, you will find other people the same," added Isabel.

"Of course, when we are very young, we are anxious that other people should adequately love and fulfil their duty to us; while, as we grow older, we realize that that is their part of the business, not ours, and that what we have to do is to adequately love and fulfil our duty to them. This is merely a question of growth, and the development of a sense of proportion."

"I believe in human nature as a whole. I have trusted a good many people more or less, and none of them as yet have ever failed me," Isabel said.

"And never will as long as you trust them," added Paul; "but only when you begin to doubt them."

"I quite agree with you there. Again, I do not a bit mind being laughed at; in fact, if the joke is a good one, I am ready to join in it; so I generally show my real self to people, and am not afraid of what is called 'giving myself away'. Consequently people as a rule show their real selves to me."

"It is a great mistake to be afraid of 'giving oneself away'. I don't know a more paralyzing form of fear."

"It seems to me," replied Isabel, "that life is very much like swimming or skating; one has to let oneself go before one can get on at all."

"And we have all got to be ourselves. The best possible edition of ourselves, I admit; but still ourselves, and not anybody else; and therefore we must expand along our own lines, and not along other people's."

"Do you remember the duchess's baby in _Alice in Wonderland_, who 'made a very ugly baby but a very handsome pig'? Now so many people are like that; they make stupendous efforts to become ugly babies, instead of settling down comfortably as handsome pigs."

"Milton's Satan was wiser in his generation than the children of light," remarked Paul; "he preferred ruling as a handsome pig to serving as an ugly baby, if you remember; only he put the case in more forceful words. Still the sentiment is the same. But he was not supposed to take the highest view."

"But wouldn't you rather be the ruling pig than the serving baby?" asked Isabel.

"I'm afraid I would; but that doesn't make it right."

"Still you said just now that we must be ourselves and not anybody else."

"And I say so still, Miss Carnaby; but one must not press the rule too far. We must, of course, live our own lives and cultivate our own characters, and must not try to grow roses on apple-trees nor lilies on oaks. But our healthy desire for individuality must not carry us into the error of becoming a law unto ourselves, and doing whatsoever is right in our own eyes."

"I think I see what you mean."

"I speak from experience," continued Paul; "as I told you, I was brought up in a narrow world, and also in a very religious one; and I was taught that few things were right and that many things were wrong, and that we must all try and conform ourselves to the same pattern. As I grew older, and saw more of the world, I found that this view of life was too narrow a one, and then I joined in the modern worship of Individuality and the glorification of Humanity; and I abused all law and order because they tended to cramp and conform the individual. Now a second reaction has set in; and I see that the Truth lies half way between the two extremes--as, in fact, it generally does."

Isabel's eyes glistened; Paul interested her extremely. "Then you mean that one must be the master of one's individuality, and not its slave?" she said.

"Or in better words, 'As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness,'" answered Paul; "you see, the highest life is a life of contradictions, and this is merely one of them."

"Tell me about your own people," said Isabel impulsively, "I'm sure they must be nice."

And Paul, to his surprise, found himself telling Miss Carnaby all about his father and his mother and Joanna, and his life at Oxford, and his boating; and his struggle to get on, and his dreams of fame. And Isabel seemed to understand it all as thoroughly as he did himself.

Paul had never talked so well in his life before. He admired Miss Carnaby enough to desire above all things to make a good impression on her; and he was not yet sufficiently in love with her to be awkward and tongue-tied in her presence. When a man admires without loving, he is conversationally at his best. There comes a later stage when he utters banalities, and makes inane jokes, and inwardly curses himself for appearing such an ass in the sight of the prettiest eyes in the world; and he has no idea that the prettiest eyes in the world see through a stone wall as far as most people, and very much prefer this style of conversation to rounded sentences and finished periods.

As Paul sat smoking in his own room that night he said to himself: "I never saw a woman with such blue eyes in my life."

Which was not true; he had seen scores of women with equally blue eyes, but he had never taken the trouble to notice them.

Then he mused, his thoughts still running on Isabel: "Think of calling such a girl as that vain! She isn't a bit vain. It is the other women that are so beastly jealous of her!"

Which also was not true; Isabel was extremely vain, and Paul had already done his best to make her more so; but his eyes were blinded that he could not see.