I don't say that she sums it all up, that would be too
much to ask of her. But she suggests it; she vividly figures it."
"You like her then for patriotic reasons. I'm afraid it is on
those very grounds I object to her."
"Ah," said Isabel with a kind of joyous sigh, "I like so many
things! If a thing strikes me with a certain intensity I accept it.
I don't want to swagger, but I suppose I'm rather versatile. I like
people to be totally different from Henrietta- in the style of Lord
Warburton's sisters for instance. So long as I look at the Misses
Molyneux they seem to me to answer a kind of ideal. Then Henrietta
presents herself, and I'm straightway convinced by her; not so much in
respect to herself as in respect to what masses behind her."
"Ah, you mean the back view of her," Ralph suggested.
"What she says is true," his cousin answered; "you'll never be
serious. I like the great country stretching away beyond the rivers
and across the prairies, blooming and smiling, and spreading till it
stops at the green Pacific! A strong, sweet, fresh odour seems to rise
from it, and Henrietta- pardon my simile- has something of that
odour in her garments.
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