The masters, she knew, were divided about her. They were, she thought, more occupied with their own quarrels and disputes than with any attitude towards herself. At first she was amused by their divided camps—it all seemed so childish and absurd, and for its very childishness it could not have a serious conclusion; but as the days went on and she saw into it all more deeply, the pathos of it caught her heart and she could have cried to think of what men they might have been, of the things that they might have done. Some of them seemed to seek her out now with a courtliness and deference that they had never shown her before. Birkland, of whom she had always been rather frightened, spoke to her now whenever there was an opportunity, and his sharp, sarcastic eyes softened, and she saw the sadness in their gray depths, and she felt in the pressure of his hands that he wanted now to be friends with her. White, too, was different now. He said very little to her, and he was so quiet that for him to speak at all was a wonderful thing, but there were a few words about his affection for Archie. With all of this Isabel got a profound sense of its being her duty to do something; as far as her own affairs were concerned she was perfectly able to manage them, and if the matter in dispute had been simply her engagement to Archie, there would be no difficulty—it was a case of waiting, and then escaping; but things were more serious than that—something was in the air, and she knew enough of that life and that atmosphere to be afraid. But it was not until later than this that she began to be afraid definitely of Mr. Perrin. But this feeling that she had of the necessity of doing something grew when she perceived the inertia of the others—inertia was perhaps scarcely the word: it was rather, as the matter advanced, an increasing impulse to sink their own quarrels and sit back in the chairs and wait for the result. And, with this before her, Isabel set out on a determined campaign, having for its ultimate issue the hope of possible reconciliation—she could not put it more optimistically than that—before the end of the term came. It was not at all a desire to do good that drove her—indeed, her flashing disputes with Mrs. Dormer, her skirmishes with the younger Miss Madder, were very far away from any evangelistic principles whatever—but rather some hint of future trouble that was hard to explain. She wished to prevent things happening, was the way that she herself would have put it; but that did not hinder her from feeling a natural anxiety that Miss Madder, Mrs. Dormer, and the rest should have some of their own shots back before the end of the term was reached. II.