Isola had felt both embarrassed and distressed by her host’s attentions--the insinuating inflections of his fat, pompous voice; his air of being upon a confidential footing with her. It had seemed to her on that evening as if for the first time in her life, before the eyes of men and women, she drank the cup of shame. She had said no word to her husband of Mr. Crowther’s oppressive familiarity, and she had fondly hoped that the matter had escaped his notice. She sat before him now, flushed and agitated, with lowered eyelids, and one hand restlessly moving about the papers on her blotting-pad. “My dearest, there is nothing in all this to distress you,” said Disney, with infinite gentleness. “It is not your fault that the man is a cad; but it would be my fault if I were to allow you or Allegra to go to his house again.” “He was not rude to Allegra.” “No; it would be her turn next, perhaps. He did not mean to be rude to you. He only wanted to be especially polite in his own odious fashion. There are men in that class who cannot behave decently to a pretty woman, or civilly to a plain one. He meant no doubt to gratify you by his compliments. What a stress he laid upon Lostwithiel’s attention to you at the ball. Were his attentions so very marked?” “Oh no; not more to me than to others,” Isola answered quickly. “He danced a good many times--twice or three times--with Belinda Crowther. Everybody noticed them as the handsomest couple in the room; not that he is handsome, of course--only tall and distinguished-looking.” Allegra came running in from the garden, and broke the thread of the conversation. Isola put the visiting-cards into an envelope and addressed it to Mrs. Vansittart Crowther. She felt that the kindly matron would be puzzled and vexed at this ceremony, from a young person towards whom she had assumed so motherly a tone, urging her to run over to Glenaveril at any hour of the day--asking her to lunch or to tea at least once a week--wanting to take her for drives to Lostwithiel, or railway jaunts to Plymouth. Isola was not mistaken, for Mrs. Crowther called three or four days afterwards and upbraided her for sending the cards. “You might have all come to tea on Thursday, if you had been good-natured,” she said. “Mr. Colfox read us a poem by Swinburne, out of one of the new magazines--there are so many nowadays that I never remember which is which. Belinda was delighted with it--but Alicia and I can’t rise to her height. Mr. Colfox reads poetry beautifully. You can’t judge of his powers by only hearing him read the lessons,” added Mrs. Crowther, as if the English Bible were a poor thing. She stopped an hour, praised Isola’s tea-making and the new cook’s tea-cakes, asked a great many questions about Allegra’s ideas and occupations, and was as hearty, and simple, and friendly, and natural as if she had been a duchess. It grieved Isola to be obliged to refuse an invitation to luncheon, most cordially pressed upon her and Allegra.