“I exact no such promise as that; it is beyond my right. What I do regard as my right is the assurance that my ward has fair play. Her position is difficult beyond that of most girls. I have confidence in Ada Warren; I believe she respects me--perhaps I should say she recognises my claims as her guardian. My house is open to you when you come on the same footing as other gentlemen.” “I cannot face you again.” “Where do you intend to pass the night?” Isabel inquired, letting a brief silence reply to his last words. “I have got a room at the inn in Winstoke.” “And to-morrow morning you return to London?” “Yes.” “Mrs. Bruce Page tells me your brother is making you an allowance. I am glad to hear that, and I hope you will heartily accept his conditions.” “I shall try to read, but there’s small chance of it ever coming to anything. I’m one of those men who inevitably go to the dogs. A longer or shorter time, but the dogs eventually.” “That is in your own hands. Shall I tell you what I think? Just one piece of my mind which perhaps you will rate cheaply enough. I think that a man who respects himself will make his own standing in life, and won’t be willing to be lifted on to smooth ground by any one, least of all by a woman’s weak hands. And now, good night to you.” She left him and entered the house by the front door. After breakfast next morning, Ada was in the library, walking from window to window, watching the course of clouds which threatened rain, at a loss, it seemed, how to employ herself. She was surprised by Mrs. Clarendon’s entrance. “You haven’t settled to work yet?” Isabel said, looking at her rather timidly. Ada merely shook her head and came towards the table. Mrs. Clarendon took up a book and glanced at it. “What are you busy with now?” she asked lightly. “Nothing in particular. I’ve just finished a novel that interests me.” “A novel? Frivolous young woman! Oh, I know that book. It’s very nice, all but the ending, and that I don’t believe in. That extravagant self-sacrifice is unnatural; no man ever yet made such a sacrifice.” “It doesn’t seem to me impossible,” said Ada. “No? It will some day.” Isabel’s way of speaking was not altogether like herself; it was rather too direct and abrupt. “Of a man, you think?” Isabel laughed. “Oh, of a woman much more! We are not so self-sacrificing as they make us out, Ada.” She took a seat on a chair which stood edgewise to the table, and rested her head against her hand. “Will you sit down?” she asked invitingly, when the girl still kept her position at a distance. “You wish to speak to me?” Ada became seated where she was. “You wish the distance to represent that which is always between us?” Isabel remarked, half sadly, half jestingly. Ada seemed about to rise, but turned it off in an arrangement of her dress.