Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/277

Rh Hotel, and enjoyed a good deal of society, and made several excursions into the country round about. They were well received by the European society of the place, which was chiefly naval and diplomatic. This was pleasant for Isabel, who could never quite accommodate herself to the somewhat second-rate position to which the English Consul and his wife are generally relegated by foreign courts (more so then than now). Isabel was always sensitive about the position abroad of her husband and herself. In the ordinary way, at many foreign capitals, the consul and his wife are not permitted to attend court, and the line of demarcation between the Consular and Diplomatic service is rigidly drawn. But Isabel would have none of this, and she demanded and obtained the position which belonged to her by birth, and to her husband by reason of his famous and distinguished public services. Burton himself cared nothing for these things, and his wife only cared for them because she had an idea they would help him on in his career. That her efforts in this direction did help him there is no doubt; but in some ways they may have hindered too, for they aroused jealousy in certain small minds among his colleagues in the Consular service, who disliked to see the Burtons taking a social position superior to their own. The fact is that both Richard Burton and his wife were simply thrown away in the Consular service; they were too big for their position, in energy, in ability, in every way. They had no field for their activities, and their large and ardent natures perpetually chafed at the restraints and petty annoyances resulting from