“I am not, I believe, a misanthropist, as you understand the word. But I had rather live alone than mix with men in general.”
“To me it would be dreadful,” said Isabel, after a moment’s thought. “I cannot bear solitude.”
“The society of refined and cultured people is the habit of your life.”
“Refined—in a sense. Cultured?—I am not so sure of that. You would not call them cultured, the people I live amongst. I am not a clever woman, Mr. Kingcote. My set is not literary nor artistic, nor anything of that kind. I am disposed to think we should come into the category of ‘mean and hateful people’—though of course you wouldn’t like to tell me so.”
“I was thinking of quite other phases of life. My own experience has not been, on the whole, among people who belong to what is called society. I have lived—in a haphazard way—with the classes that have no social standing, so, you see, I have no right to comment upon your circles.”
Isabel glanced at him, and turned her eyes away. A fan was lying on the table close by her; she reached it, and played with the folds.
“But at all events,” she resumed, as if to slightly change the tone, “you have had the Vissians. Don’t you find them delightful? I do so like Mr. Vissian, with his queer bookhunting, and Mrs. Vissian is charm itself. These are congenial associates, no doubt?”
“Very; I like them extremely. Has Mr. Vissian told you how my acquaintance with him began?”
“Nothing, except that you met somehow in connection with the cottage.”
“The good rector is wonderfully discreet,” said Kingcote, with a smile. And he related the story of the Midsummer Day on which he walked from Salcot to Winstoke.
“It really was an act of unexampled generosity on Mr. Vissians part, to trust a stranger, with so dubious a story. But the first edition of ‘Venice Preserved’ no doubt seemed to him a guarantee of respectability. I had the book bound during the few days that I spent in London, and made him a present of it when I returned.”
“You have friends in London?” Isabel asked. “Relations?”
“A sister—married. My parents are not living.”
“But of friends, companions?”
“One, an artist. Did you visit the Academy this year? There was a picture of his—his name is Gabriel—a London street scene; perhaps you didn’t notice it. You would scarcely have liked it. The hanging committee must have accepted it in a moment of strangely lucid liberality. By which, Mrs. Clarendon, I don’t mean to reflect upon your taste. I don’t like the picture myself, but it has great technical merits.”
“Is he young, like yourself?”
“Like myself?” Kingcote repeated, as if struck by the expression.
“Certainly. Are you not young?”
“I suppose so,” said the other, smiling rather grimly. “At all events, I am not thirty in years. But it sounded curious to hear the word applied to myself.”
Isabel laughed, opening and closing the fan. “But Gabriel is a fine fellow,” Kingcote exclaimed. “I wish I possessed a tenth part of his energy. There he works, day after day and week after week, no break, no failing of force or purpose, no holiday even—says he hasn’t time to take one. He will make his way, of course; such a man is bound to. Resolutely he has put away from himself every temptation to idleness. He sees no friends, he cares for no amusement. His power of working is glorious.”
“He is not, of course, married?”
Kingcote shook his head.
“That singleness of purpose—how splendid it is! He and I are opposite poles. I do not know what it is to have the same mind for two days together. My enthusiasm of to-day will be my disgust of to-morrow. I am always seeking, and never finding; I haven’t the force to pursue a search to the end. My moods are tyrannous; my moods make my whole life. Others have intellect; I have only temperament.”
There was no excitement in his way of uttering these confessions, but he began reflectively and ended in a grave bitterness.
“I think I know something of that,” Isabel said in return. “I, too, am much subject to moods.”
“But they do not affect the even tenor of your life,” said Kingcote. “They do not drive you to take one day an irrevocable step which you will repent the next. They have not made your life a failure.”
“Have they done so in your case?” Isabel asked, with a look of serious sympathy. “Pray remember your admission that you have not yet thirty years.”
“The tale of my years is of small account. I shall not change. I know myself, and I know my future.”
“That you cannot. And, from what you have told me, I think your present mode of life most unfortunate, most ill-chosen.”
There was a shadow at the window, and Ada re-entered the room.
“Won’t you let us see the sketch that was spoken of?” asked Mrs. Clarendon, turning to her.
“I don’t know where to find it at present,” Ada replied, moving to a seat in a remote part of the room.
“Do you think of living in that cottage through the winter?” Isabel asked of Kingcote, when there had been silence for a moment.
“Probably through many winters.”
“You remember that there is a considerable difference between our climate at present and what it will be in a couple of months or less.”
“I shall lay in a stock of fuel. And it will interest me. I have never spent a winter in the country; I want to study the effects.”
“The effects, I fear,” said Isabel, smiling, “are more likely to be of interest to our good friend Doctor Grayling.”
“Or even to the respectable undertaker, whose shop is in the High Street?” added Kingcote, with a laugh. “It doesn’t greatly matter.”
He rose and walked to the window.
“Do you remain here through the winter?” he asked.
“I believe so; though I cannot say with certainty. I like to be here for the meets.”
“The meets?”
“The hunting, you know.”
“Ah, you hunt?”
“Mr. Kingcote is shocked, Ada. He thinks that at my age I should have abandoned all such vanities.”
“Or perhaps wonders more,” remarked the girl, “that you ever indulged in them.”
Kingcote looked from one to the other, but kept silence.
“Oh, but we have altogether forgotten Sir Thomas!” Isabel exclaimed. “Where is he? Do read us something, Mr. Kingcote.”
Kingcote hesitated.
“There are many passages marked in the book,” he said. “Will you let me leave it with you, that you may glance through it? Perhaps it is better suited for reading to oneself.”
“Very well; but I will do more than glance. I once knew what it was even to study, Mr. Kingcote, though you will have a difficulty in believing it.”
“The idea is not so incongruous,” he said, half seriously.
“Though passably so. You are not going?”
“I will, if you please.”
A heaviness seemed to have fallen upon him during the last few minutes; a smile was summoned only with difficulty, and his eyes had a weary look.
“But now that we know each other by more than hearsay,” said Isabel,