evoted of you to throw
yourself into the breach for Edward as you did at Oxford. I am afraid it
must have been very disagreeable, both to you and to her. When Edward
told me of it next morning it made me cold to think of it. I made up my
mind that our friendship--yours and ours--with her was over. But do you
know she came to call on me that very afternoon--how she made time I
don't know--but she did. Naturally, I was very uncomfortable, but she
began to talk of it in the calmest way while we were having tea. "Mr.
Kendal was probably quite right," she said, "in thinking the part
unsuited to me; anyhow, I asked him for his opinion, and I should be a
poor creature to mind his giving it." And then she laughed and said that
I must ask Edward to keep his eyes open for anything that would do better
for her in the autumn. And since then she has behaved as if she had
forgotten all about it. I never knew any one with less smallness about
her.'

'No; she is a fine creature,' said Kendal, almost mechanically. How
little Mrs. Stuart knew--or rather, how entirely remote she was from
_feeling_--what had happened! It seemed to him that the emotion of that
scene was still thrilling through all his pulses, yet to what ordinary
little proportions had it been reduced in Mrs. Stuart's mind! He alone
had seen the veil lifted, had come close to the energetic reality of the
girl's nature. That Isabel Bretherton could feel so, could look so, was
known only to him--the thought had pain in it, but the keenest pleasure
also.

'Do you know,' said Mrs. Stuart presently, with a touch of reproach in
her voice, 'that she asked for you on the last night?'

'Did she?'

'Yes. We had just gone on to the stage to see her after the curtain had
fallen. It was such a pretty sight, you ought not to have missed it. The
Prince had come to say good-bye to her, and, as we came in, she was just
turning away in her long phantom dress with the white hood falling round
her head, like that Romney picture--don't you remember?--of Lady
Hamilton,--Mr. Forbes has drawn her in it two or three times. The stage
was full of people. Mr. Forbes was there, of course, and Edward, and
ourselves, and presently I heard her say to Edward, "Is Mr. Kendal here?
I did not see him in the house." Edward said something about your not
having been able to get a seat, which I thought clumsy of him, for, of
course, we could have got some sort of place for you at the last moment.
She didn't