e was always different from their manner before an
audience. But this change, deliberate in Lawrence, had hitherto
been instinctive and almost unconscious in Isabel. It was not so
now, she fled to Val and to her younger self for refuge. What a
fanfaronade! Why couldn't Captain Hyde have put the rings in his
pocket? But no, it must all be done with an air--and what an
air! Rings worth thousands--historic mementoes--stripped off
and tossed away to please--! And at that Isabel, enchanted and
terrified, bundled the entire dialogue into the cellars of her
mind and locked the doors on it. Later,--later,--when one was
alone! "Oh, Val, say I may go!" she cried, clasping her hands on
Val's arm, so cool and firm amid a spinning world.

[Footnote]

What actually happened later that afternoon was that Isabel, who
had a practical mind, spent three-quarters of an hour on the moor
hunting for the rings. The turquoise she found, conspicuous on a
patch of smooth turf: the other was never recovered.

[End of Footnote]

"You may," said Val laughing. He disliked the scheme, but was
incapable of refusing Laura Clowes: he gave her Isabel as he would
have given her the last drops of his blood, if she had asked for them
in that low voice of hers, and with those sweet eyes that never
seemed to anticipate refusal. There are women--not necessarily the
most beautiful of their sex--to whom men find it hard to refuse
anything. And, consenting, it was not in Val to consent with an ill
grace. "Certainly you may, if Captain Hyde is kind enough to take
you!" Stafford's lips, finely cut and sensitive, betrayed the
sarcastic sense of humour which he ruled out of his voice: perhaps
the less said about kindness the better! "But do look over her
wardrobe first, Laura: I'm never sure whether Isabel is grown up or
not, but she could hardly figure at Hadow's in her present easy-going
kit--"

He stopped, because Isabel was trying to waltz him round the
lawn. In her reaction from a deeper excitement, she was as
excited as a child. She released Val soon and hugged Laura
Clowes instead, while Lawrence, looking on with his wintry smile,
wondered whether she would have extended the same civility to him
if she had known how much he desired it. . . . There were moments
when he hated Isabel. Was she never going to grow up?

Not at present, apparently. "What must I wear, Laura? Do people
wear evening dress? Where shall we sit? What time sha