"I don't think he'd care much about our little circle. He'd concentrate
on Isabel."

"And how would my cousin like that?"

"Very possibly not at all. But it will be good for her. It will call
back her thoughts."

"Call them back--from where?"

"From foreign parts and other unnatural places. Three months ago she
gave Mr. Goodwood every reason to suppose he was acceptable to her, and
it's not worthy of Isabel to go back on a real friend simply because she
has changed the scene. I've changed the scene too, and the effect of it
has been to make me care more for my old associations than ever. It's my
belief that the sooner Isabel changes it back again the better. I know
her well enough to know that she would never be truly happy over here,
and I wish her to form some strong American tie that will act as a
preservative."

"Aren't you perhaps a little too much in a hurry?" Ralph enquired.
"Don't you think you ought to give her more of a chance in poor old
England?"

"A chance to ruin her bright young life? One's never too much in a hurry
to save a precious human creature from drowning."

"As I understand it then," said Ralph, "you wish me to push Mr. Goodwood
overboard after her. Do you know," he added, "that I've never heard her
mention his name?"

Henrietta gave a brilliant smile. "I'm delighted to hear that; it proves
how much she thinks of him."

Ralph appeared to allow that there was a good deal in this, and he
surrendered to thought while his companion watched him askance. "If I
should invite Mr. Goodwood," he finally said, "it would be to quarrel
with him."

"Don't do that; he'd prove the better man."

"You certainly are doing your best to make me hate him! I really don't
think I can ask him. I should be afraid of being rude to him."

"It's just as you please," Henrietta returned. "I had no idea you were
in love with her yourself."

"Do you really believe that?" the young man asked with lifted eyebrows.

"That's the most natural speech I've ever heard you make! Of course I
believe it," Miss Stackpole ingeniously said.

"Well," Ralph concluded, "to prove to you that you're wrong I'll invite
him. It must be of course as a friend of yours."

"It will not be as a friend of mine that he'll come; and it will not be
to prove to me that I'm wrong that you'll ask him--but to prove it to
yourself!"

These last words of Miss Stackpole's (on which the two presently
separated) contained an amount of truth