But before this grandchild,
whom she had reared from infancy, she felt the brute cowardice
which is often the only tribute that a debased nature can pay to
the incorruptible. Her love must have its basis in some abject
emotion: it took its origin from fear.
An unforeseen incident, occurring when Isabel was yet a child and
all but daily putting forth new growths of nature, rendered very
clear even then the developing antagonism and prospective
relationship of these two characters. In a company of ladies the
grandmother, drawing the conversation to herself, remarked with a
suggestive laugh that as there were no men present she would tell a
certain story. "Grandmother," interposed Isabel, vaguely startled,
"please do not say anything that you would not say before a man;"
and for an instant, amid the hush, the child and the woman looked
at each other like two repellent intelligences, accidentally
meeting out of the heavens and the pit.
This had been the first of a long series of antagonism and recoils,
and as the child had matured, the purity and loftiness of her
nature had by this very contact grown chilled toward austerity.
Thus nature lends a gradual protective hardening to a tender
surface during abrasion with a coarser thing. It left Isabel more
reserved with her grandmother than with any one else of all the
persons who entered into her life.
For this reason Mrs. Conyers now foresaw that this interview would
be specially difficult.
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