k with Osmond once would be to break for ever; any open
acknowledgement of irreconcilable needs would be an admission that
their whole attempt had proved a failure. For them there could be
no condonement, no compromise, no easy forgetfulness, no formal
readjustment. They had attempted only one thing, but that one thing was
to have been exquisite. Once they missed it nothing else would do; there
was no conceivable substitute for that success. For the moment, Isabel
went to the Hotel de Paris as often as she thought well; the measure
of propriety was in the canon of taste, and there couldn't have been
a better proof that morality was, so to speak, a matter of earnest
appreciation. Isabel's application of that measure had been particularly
free to-day, for in addition to the general truth that she couldn't
leave Ralph to die alone she had something important to ask of him. This
indeed was Gilbert's business as well as her own.

She came very soon to what she wished to speak of. "I want you to answer
me a question. It's about Lord Warburton."

"I think I guess your question," Ralph answered from his arm-chair, out
of which his thin legs protruded at greater length than ever.

"Very possibly you guess it. Please then answer it."

"Oh, I don't say I can do that."

"You're intimate with him," she said; "you've a great deal of
observation of him."

"Very true. But think how he must dissimulate!"

"Why should he dissimulate? That's not his nature."

"Ah, you must remember that the circumstances are peculiar," said Ralph
with an air of private amusement.

"To a certain extent--yes. But is he really in love?"

"Very much, I think. I can make that out."

"Ah!" said Isabel with a certain dryness.

Ralph looked at her as if his mild hilarity had been touched with
mystification. "You say that as if you were disappointed."

Isabel got up, slowly smoothing her gloves and eyeing them thoughtfully.
"It's after all no business of mine."

"You're very philosophic," said her cousin. And then in a moment: "May I
enquire what you're talking about?"

Isabel stared. "I thought you knew. Lord Warburton tells me he wants,
of all things in the world, to marry Pansy. I've told you that before,
without eliciting a comment from you. You might risk one this morning, I
think. Is it your belief that he really cares for her?"

"Ah, for Pansy, no!" cried Ralph very positively.

"But you said just now he did."

Ralph waited a moment. "