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he said. ‘I was rather puzzled in your country; in fact I was
quite bewildered, and the trouble was that the explanations
only puzzled me more. You know I think they often gave me
the wrong ones on purpose; they’re rather clever about that
over there. But when I explain you can trust me; about what
I tell you there’s no mistake.’ There was no mistake at least
about his being very intelligent and cultivated and knowing
almost everything in the world. Although he gave the most
interesting and thrilling glimpses Isabel felt he never did
it to exhibit himself, and though he had had rare chances
and had tumbled in, as she put it, for high prizes, he was as
far as possible from making a merit of it. He had enjoyed
the best things of life, but they had not spoiled his sense of
proportion. His quality was a mixture of the effect of rich
experienced, so easily come by!—with a modesty at times
almost boyish; the sweet and wholesome savour of which—
it was as agreeable as something tasted—lost nothing from
the addition of a tone of responsible kindness.
‘I like your specimen English gentleman very much,’ Isa-
bel said to Ralph after Lord Warburton had gone.
‘I like him too—I love him well,’ Ralph returned. ‘But I
pity him more.’
Isabel looked at him askance. ‘Why, that seems to me his
only faultthat one can’t pity him a little. He appears to have
everything, to know everything, to be everything.’
‘Oh, he’s in a bad way!’ Ralph insisted.
‘I suppose you don’t mean in health?’
‘No, as to that he’s detestably sound. What I mean is that
he’s a man with a great position who’s playing all sorts of

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