It was Isobel who found all the things which, manlike, he so constantly mislaid, who tramped over the fields with him, interesting herself in all the outdoor side of his life, and she was almost as good at landing a trout as he himself.
There seemed small likelihood of Roger's going far afield in search of a wife, so that Isobel had not apprehended much danger to her hopes--more especially as she had a shrewd idea that Lady Gertrude would look upon the marriage with the selfish approval of a woman who gains a daughter without losing the services of a niece who is "used to her ways." Such a union need not even upset existing arrangements.

Isobel had learned by long experience how to "get on" amicably with her autocratic relative, and the latter could remain--as her niece knew very well she would wish to remain at Trenby Hall, still nominally its chatelaine.
Lady Gertrude and Isobel had never been frequent visitors at Mallow, and it had so happened that neither they, nor Roger on the rare occasions when he was home on leave from the Front, had chanced to meet Nan Davenant during her former visits to Mallow Court.
Now that she had seen her, Isobel's ideas were altogether bouleversee.
Never for a single instant would she have imagined that a woman of Nan's type--artistic, emotional, elusive--could attract a man like Roger Trenby.

The fact remained, however, that Nan had succeeded where hitherto she herself had failed, and Isobel's dreams of a secure future had come tumbling about her ears.

She realised bitterly that love is like quicksilver, running this way or that at its own sweet will--and rarely into the channel we have ordained for it..