“When Mr. Asquith told you something from me a month ago,” Isabel continued, “did it occur to you that I had any motive in--in choosing just that time, in letting you know those things just when I did?” Ada had fixed a keen and curious look on the speaker, a look which was troublesome in its intensity. “I supposed,” was her measured reply, “that you thought I had come to the age when I ought to know something of the future that was before me.” “Yes, that is true. You will credit me, will you not, with a desire to save you from being at a disadvantage?” “Certainly.” The word was rather ironically spoken. “You perhaps think I ought to have told you sooner?” “I have had that thought.” “On the other hand, you do not forget that nothing obliged me to tell you for another year and a half.” “Nothing obliged you.” Isabel suffered from the keen annoyance which this dry manner of the girl’s always occasioned her. She did not speak again till she felt able to do so with a voice as quiet as before. “When I spoke of your being at a disadvantage, I meant, of course, that it was hardly right for others to be aware of facts about you which you yourself did not know.” “I gathered that from your words.” “Ada, I wish I had more of your confidence. I am not very good at this stagey sort of talk; it is not natural to me; it brings me into a tone which is the very last I wish to use to you. I asked my cousin to relieve me of the duty of telling you about the will because I did not feel quite able to do it myself; I was rather afraid of myself--of being led to say things I should be sorry for. As you know very well, I’m quick-tempered, and not quite as wise a woman as I might be. I feared, too, lest you might say things I couldn’t bear to hear. Well, what I want to ask you is this: Do you understand how difficult my position is with regard to you? Do you see how we differ from ordinary guardian and ward, and how all but impossible it is for me to give you those pieces of advice, those warnings which, as an older woman, I should be justified in offering?” “Advice, warning?” repeated Ada, without much curiosity. “Both. You have had very slight opportunities of getting to know the world. You prefer your books to society, and perhaps rightly; but that must not bring you to forget that you are heiress to a large fortune, and--and that other people--our friends--are well aware of it.” Ada laughed silently. “You wish, Mrs. Clarendon, to put me on my guard?” “I do.” The silent laugh had covered a distortion of features, as if by bodily pain. The girl’s eyes began to take on that wide, dangerous look which Isabel knew well and feared; there was a motion of her shoulders also, like a result of physical uneasiness. “Wishing me,” Ada pursued, in a higher note, “at the same time to understand that no one is at all likely to seek me out for my own sake.”