This visit to Isabella's town house had, it appears, been arranged by the two girls, Madame acquiescing, as she acquiesced in all that was for her daughter's happiness.
In whatsoever line I moved, Isabella seemed to stand in my path ready to frustrate my designs and impede my progress.

And Isabella Gayerson had been my only playmate in childhood--the companion of my youth, and, if the matter had rested with me, might have remained the friend of my whole lifetime.
As I walked down Oxford Street (for in those days I could not afford a cab, my every shilling being needed to keep open Hopton and pay the servants there) I pondered over these things, and quite failed to elucidate them.

And writing now, after many stormy years, and in quiet harbour at Hopton, I still fail to understand Isabella; nor can I tell what it is that makes a woman so uncertain in her friendships.
Then my thoughts returned to Mr.Devar, where the necessity for action presented difficulties more after my own heart.
I went to the club and there wrote a letter to Sander, who was still in the Netherlands, asking him if he knew aught of a gentleman calling himself Devar, who appeared to me to be no gentleman, who spoke French like any Frenchman, and had the air of a prosperous scoundrel..