She had made her mind up to nothing when she asked him to walk up to the waterfall.  There was present to her only the glimmer of an idea that she ought to caution him not to play with the American girl’s feelings.  She knew herself to be aware that when the time for her own action came her feminine feelings would get the better of her purpose.  She could not craftily bring him to the necessity of bestowing himself upon her.  Had that been within the compass of her powers, opportunities had not been lacking to her.  On such occasions she had always ‘spared him’.  And should the opportunity come again, again she would spare him.  But she might perhaps do some good,—­not to herself, that was now out of the question,—­but to him by showing him how wrong he was in trifling with this girl’s feelings.

And so they started for their walk.  He of course would have avoided it had it been possible.  When men in such matters have two strings to their bow, much inconvenience is felt when the two become entangled.  Silverbridge no doubt had come over to Killancodlem for the sake of making love to Mabel Grex, and instead of doing so, he had made love to Isabel Boncassen.  And during the wakes of the night, and as he had dressed himself in the morning, and while Mrs Jones had been whispering to him her little bulletin as to the state of the young lady’s health, he had not repented himself of the change.  Mabel had been, he thought, so little gracious to him that he would have given up that notion earlier, but for his indiscreet declaration to his father.  On the other hand, making love to Isabel Boncassen seemed to him to possess some divine afflatus of joy which made it of all imaginable occupations the sweetest and most charming.  She had admitted of no embrace.  Indeed he had attempted none unless that touch of the hand might be so called, from which she had immediately withdrawn.  Her conduct had been such that he had felt it to be incumbent on him, at the very moment, to justify the touch by a declaration of love.  Then she had told him that she would not promise to love him in return.  And yet it had been so sweet, so heavenly sweet!

During the morning he had almost forgotten Mabel.  When Mrs Jones told him that Isabel would keep her room, he longed to ask for leave to go and make some inquiry at the door.  She would not play lawn-tennis with him.  Well;—­he did not now care much for that.  After what he had said to her she must at any rate give him some answer.  She had been so gracious to him that his hopes ran very high.  It never occurred to him to fancy that she might be gracious to him because he was heir to the Dukedom of Omnium.  She herself was so infinitely superior to all wealth, to all rank, to all sublunary arrangements, conventions, and considerations, that there was no room for confidence of that nature.  But he was confident because he smile had been sweet, her eyes bright,—­and because he was conscious, though unconsciously conscious of something of the sympathy of love.