"Well then," said Ralph, "I won't say it vexes me to see you single. It delights me rather."
"You're not serious yet. You never will be."
"Shall you not believe me to be so on the day I tell you I desire to give up the practice of going round alone?"
Miss Stackpole looked at him for a moment in a manner which seemed to announce a reply that might technically be called encouraging. But to his great surprise this expression suddenly resolved itself into an appearance of alarm and even of resentment. "No, not even then," she answered dryly. After which she walked away.
"I've not conceived a passion for your friend," Ralph said that evening to Isabel, "though we talked some time this morning about it."
"And you said something she didn't like," the girl replied.
Ralph stared. "Has she complained of me?"
"She told me she thinks there's something very low in the tone of Europeans towards women."
"Does she call me a European?"
"One of the worst. She told me you had said to her something that an American never would have said. But she didn't repeat it."
Ralph treated himself to a luxury of laughter. "She's an extraordinary combination. Did she think I was making love to her?"
"No; I believe even Americans do that. But she apparently thought you mistook the intention of something she had said, and put an unkind construction on it."
"I thought she was proposing marriage to me and I accepted her. Was that unkind?"
Isabel smiled. "It was unkind to me. I don't want you to marry."
"My dear cousin, what's one to do among you all?" Ralph demanded. "Miss Stackpole tells me it's my bounden duty, and that it's hers, in general, to see I do mine!"
"She has a great sense of duty," said Isabel gravely. "She has indeed, and it's the motive of everything she says. That's what I like her for. She thinks it's unworthy of you to keep so many things to yourself. That's what she wanted to express. If you thought she was trying to--to attract you, you were very wrong."
"It's true it was an odd way, but I did think she was trying to attract me. Forgive my depravity."
"You're very conceited. She had no interested views, and never supposed you would think she had."
"One must be very modest then to talk with such women," Ralph said humbly. "But it's a very strange type. She's too personal--considering that she expects other people not to be. She walks in without knocking at the door."