-morrow morning at ten."

"Don't come for my sake, Mr. Bantling," said Isabel.

"He'll come for mine," Henrietta declared as she ushered her friend into
a cab. And later, in a large dusky parlour in Wimpole Street--to do her
justice there had been dinner enough--she asked those questions to which
she had alluded at the station. "Did your husband make you a scene about
your coming?" That was Miss Stackpole's first enquiry.

"No; I can't say he made a scene."

"He didn't object then?"

"Yes, he objected very much. But it was not what you'd call a scene."

"What was it then?"

"It was a very quiet conversation."

Henrietta for a moment regarded her guest. "It must have been hellish,"
she then remarked. And Isabel didn't deny that it had been hellish. But
she confined herself to answering Henrietta's questions, which was easy,
as they were tolerably definite. For the present she offered her no
new information. "Well," said Miss Stackpole at last, "I've only one
criticism to make. I don't see why you promised little Miss Osmond to go
back."

"I'm not sure I myself see now," Isabel replied. "But I did then."

"If you've forgotten your reason perhaps you won't return."

Isabel waited a moment. "Perhaps I shall find another."

"You'll certainly never find a good one."

"In default of a better my having promised will do," Isabel suggested.

"Yes; that's why I hate it."

"Don't speak of it now. I've a little time. Coming away was a
complication, but what will going back be?"

"You must remember, after all, that he won't make you a scene!" said
Henrietta with much intention.

"He will, though," Isabel answered gravely. "It won't be the scene of a
moment; it will be a scene of the rest of my life."

For some minutes the two women sat and considered this remainder, and
then Miss Stackpole, to change the subject, as Isabel had requested,
announced abruptly: "I've been to stay with Lady Pensil!"

"Ah, the invitation came at last!"

"Yes; it took five years. But this time she wanted to see me."

"Naturally enough."

"It was more natural than I think you know," said Henrietta, who fixed
her eyes on a distant point. And then she added, turning suddenly:
"Isabel Archer, I beg your pardon. You don't know why? Because I
criticised you, and yet I've gone further than you. Mr. Osmond, at
least, was born on the other side!"

It was a moment before Isabel grasped her meaning; this sense was so
modestly, or at least