Gundred, however, found herself warmly approving of Ivescar. True, the country just round was “dreadfully black and barren, very ugly and uncultivated”; but the house was roomy, airy, warm, comfortable, quite suitable and pleasant in every way. It would hold plenty of people, and had been built with an eye to the convenience of house-parties. Carpets and curtains and cushions were all opulent and softly luxurious. They compared well, to her taste, with the bare floors, the flags, the worn matting of Brakelond. She resolved on a few improvements, but, on the whole, was very well satisfied. A building produced by one mind may, perhaps, have a less complicated personality, a simpler sense of unity, than one built up by the varying tastes of twenty succeeding generations. Ivescar was plain and direct in scheme. There was a good collection of pictures, bought, all together, by James Darnley from the previous owner, who had accumulated them because he imagined it a suitable thing to do; otherwise Ivescar was tormented by no ambitions whatever, artistic or dramatic. It only aimed, with a good-humoured whole-heartedness, at being altogether comfortable. Gundred entered into its spirit, and in an environment so congenial her abandonment of all attempt to share in conversation with Kingston and Isabel became at once more complete and less noticeable. She passed into entire absorption in the details of daily life, lost any wish to be in touch with intellectual life, took the colour of her surroundings so perfectly that neither she herself nor the others realized how completely she had withdrawn from their company. As for Isabel, the exasperating vividness of the woman leapt into more violent relief than ever against the smug complacency of Ivescar. At Brakelond Isabel had been a part of the place; her individuality had toned in with all the other individualities that had gone to make up Brakelond. As one organ note is inconspicuous among a crowd of other organ notes, so Isabel’s nature had there been merged in a crowd of other similar natures. Here, however, at Ivescar the organ note of her personality sounded harsh and tremendous, almost terrifying, amid the clacking babble of mediocrity for ever kept up by the house. Only trifling, futile people had had part in the building and the life of Ivescar; their influence had left the place a pleasant little chorus of tinkling inanities; and, by contrast, the fierce song of Isabel’s nature rose dominant, tyrannous, obliterating all the lesser voices around.