The next morning Isabel was as late as Kingston. Gundred condoned the offence on the score of fatigue, but Kingston regarded it with that severity we always show to our own pet faults when we meet them in people we dislike. Daylight added nothing and softened nothing in his first impressions as to his wife’s cousin. Still untidy, still disorderly, still ebullient, Isabel was as reprehensible as ever in all she did and said, and Kingston’s irritation grew as he noticed how often she said what he would have said himself, how she caught his own flying thoughts while Gundred’s mind was still loitering in their track, or busy with the teapot; how unable his instinct still was to endorse the opinion of his reason that Isabel was altogether unworthy of notice. Without seeming to, without caring to, she claimed his notice, insisted on it, held it; and as the day went by, he found himself looking at her again and again with reluctant interest. Each time he forced himself to notice a loose strand of hair, a brooch unfastened, a hook and eye gone wrong; but not the most strenuous disapproval of details could kill his angry curiosity as to the personality of which they made part. As she talked, her wide mouth, with its scarlet lips, flickered and flashed at every feeling, and her great eyes blazed at him, now green, now grey, now gold, till the white was visible all round, and he felt himself bound in the magnetism of their stare. Isabel had accepted Gundred’s proposal with equanimity. Yes, she would make a part of their household gladly, until such time, she said, as she married or eloped. What Gundred had meant--at least, in part--as a favour done to the poor colonial cousin, the poor colonial cousin accepted with the high calm of perfect equality, easily, gracefully, and without a second thought or any emphasis of gratitude. Gundred felt that her cousin’s manner of receiving favours lacked something; she made them seem mere services; and her words, too, sounded flippant and offhand to Gundred, who clung to small politenesses and the proper observances of courtesy.