“What the rest of the world is—nothing. It seems to me that we are out of the story, my dear. At any rate, I shan’t attempt to compete with Miss Gage in splendid behaviour, and I hope you won’t. It would be so easy for us. I wonder what Papa Gage is going to be like.” I felt my thrill of apprehension impart itself to her. “Yes!” she gasped; “what if he shouldn’t like it?” “Well, then, that’s his affair.” But I did not feel so lightly about it as I spoke, and from time to time during the day I was overtaken with a cold dismay at the thought of the unknown quantity in the problem. When we returned to the hotel after a tour of the block, we saw Kendricks in our corner of the verandah with Miss Gage. They were both laughing convulsively, and they ran down to meet us in yet wilder throes of merriment. “We’ve just been comparing notes,” he said, “and at the very moment when I was telling you, Mr. March, Julia was telling Mrs. March.” “Wonderful case of telepathy,” I mocked. “Give it to the Psychical Research.” They both seemed a little daunted, and Miss Gage said, “I know Mr. March doesn’t like the way we’ve done.” “Like it!” cried Mrs. March, contriving to shake me a little with the hand she still had in my arm. “Of course he likes it. He was just saying you had behaved splendidly. He said _he_ wouldn’t attempt to compete with you. But you mustn’t regard him in the least.” I admired the skill with which Isabel saved her conscience in this statement too much to dispute it; and I suppose that whatever she had said, Miss Gage would have been reassured. I cannot particularly praise the wisdom of her behaviour during that day, or, for the matter of that, the behaviour of Kendricks either. The ideal thing would have been for him to keep away now till her father came, but it seemed to me that he was about under our feet all the while, and that she, so far from making him remain at his own hotel, encouraged him to pass the time at ours. Without consulting me, Mrs. March asked him to stay to dinner after he had stayed all the forenoon, and he made this a pretext for spending the afternoon in our corner of the verandah. She made me give it up to him and Miss Gage, so that they could be alone together, though I must say they did not seem to mind us a great deal when we were present; he was always leaning on the back of her chair, or sitting next her with his hand dangling over it in a manner that made me sick. I wondered if I was ever such an ass as that, and I quite lost the respect for Kendricks’s good sense and good taste which had been the ground of my liking for him.