196 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY, must also touch in time. The visions I have just spoken of were intermingled with other reveries. Isabel liked better to think of the future than of the past ; but at times, as she listened to the murmur of the Mediterranean waves, her glance took a backward flight. It rested upon two figures which, in spite of increasing distance, were still sufficiently salient ; they were recognisa'ble without difficulty as those of Caspar Goodwood and Lord Warburton. It was strange how quickly these gentlemen had fallen into the background of our young lady's life. It was in her disposition at all times to lose faith in the reality of absent things ; she could summon back her faith, in case of need, with an effort, but the effort was often painful, even when tho reality had been pleasant The past was apt to look dead, and its revival to wear the supernatural aspect of a resurrection. Isabel moreover was not prone to take for granted that she her- self lived in the mind of others she had not the fatuity to believe that she left indelible traces. She was capable of being wounded by the discovery that she had been forgotten ; and yet, of all liberties, the one she herself found sweetest was the liberty to forget. She had not given her last shilling, sentiment- ally speaking, either to Caspar Goodwood or to Lord Warbur- ton, and yet she did not regard them as appreciably in her debt. She had, of course, reminded herself that she was to hear from Mr. Goodwood again ; but this was not to be for another year and a half, and in that time a great many things might happen. Isabel did not say to herself that her American suitor might find some other girl more comfortable to woo ; because, though it was certain that many other girls would prove so, she had not the smallest belief that this merit would attract him. But she reflected that she herself might change her humour might weary of those things that were not Caspar (and there were so many things that were not Caspar !), and might find satisfaction in the very qualities which struck her to-day as his limitations. It was conceivable that his limitations should some day prove a sort of blessing in disguise a clear and quiet harbour, inclosed by a fine granite breakwater. But that day could only come in its order, and she could not wait for it with folded hands. That Lord Warburton should continue to cherish her image seemed to her more than modesty should not only expect, but even desire. She had so definitely undertaken to forget him, as a lover, that a corresponding effort on his own part would be eminently pro- per. This was not, as it may seem, merely a theory tinged with sarcasm. Isabel really believed that his lordship would, in the usual phrase, get over it. He had been deeply smitten
