’Mignonne allons voir si la rose
Qui ce matin avoit desclose
Sa robe de pourpre au soleil
A point perdu ceste vespree
I as plis de sa robe pourpree
Et son teint au votre pareil . . .’

She discerned in Isabel that quality of beauty, noble, spirited, and yet wistful, which requires a most expensive setting of simplicity.  And that was why Isabel opened her coat.  If Captain Hyde had admired her in her Chilmark muslin, what would he think of flounce and fold of rose-point of Alencon under Yvonne’s perfumed furs?  And then she blushed again because the yearning in his eyes made her wonder if he cared after all whether she wore lace or cotton.  Everything was so strange!

Strangest of all it was, to the brink of unreality, that Laura evidently remained blind.  But Laura was always blind.  “Why, she never even sees Val!” reflected Isabel scornfully.  And yet—­ suppose Isabel were deceiving herself?  What if Captain Hyde were not in earnest?  But her older self comforted her child’s self:  careless was he, and composed?  “You were not always so composed, Lawrence,” in her own mind the elder Isabel mocked him with her sparkling eyes.

Waterloo, lamplit and resonant:  the pulsing of many lamps, the hurry of many steps, the flitting by of many faces under an arch of gloom:  dark quiet and the scent of violets in a waiting car.

“What a jolly taxi!” Isabel exclaimed.  “I never was in a taxi like this before.  Is it a more expensive kind?”

“My dear Lawrence, you certainly have the art of making your life run on wheels!” said Laura smiling.  “How many telegrams have you sent today?”

“If you do a thing at all you may as well do it in decent comfort,” Lawrence replied sententiously.  “Half past seven; that’ll give us easy time!  I booked a table at Malvani’s, I thought you would prefer it to one of the big crowded shows.”

“Are we going to have supper—­dinner I mean—­at a restaurant?” asked Isabel awestruck.

Laurance smiled at her with irrepressible tenderness.  “Did you think you weren’t going to get anything to eat at all?” He forbore to remind her of her unfortunate allusion to sandwiches—­ for which Isabel was grateful to him.  “Aren’t you hungry?”

“Oh yes:  but then I often am.  Is Malvani’s a very quiet place?”

Lawrence looked at Laura with a comical expression.  “What an ass I was!  Wouldn’t the Ritz have been more to the point?”

“Never mind, sweetheart,” said Laura.  “Malvani’s isn’t dowdily quiet.  It’s the smartest of the smart, and there are always a lot of distinguished people in it.  Dear me, how long it is since I’ve dined in town!  Really it’s great fun, I feel as if I had come out of a tomb—­” she checked herself:  but she might have been as indiscreet as she liked, for her companions were not listening.  Laura was faintly, very faintly startled by their attitude—­Hyde leaning forward in the half-light of the brougham to button Isabel’s glove—­but she was soon smiling at her own fancy.  “Poor Isabel, poor simple Isabel!” She was only a child after all.