That Lord Warburton should continue to cherish her image seemed
to her more than a noble humility or an enlightened pride ought to
wish to reckon with. She had so definitely undertaken to preserve no
record of what had passed between them that a corresponding effort
on his own part would be eminently just. This was not, as it may seem,
merely a theory tinged with sarcasm. Isabel candidly believed that his
lordship would, in the usual phrase, get over his disappointment. He
had been deeply affected- this she believed, and she was still capable
of deriving pleasure from the belief; but it was absurd that a man
both so intelligent and so honourably dealt with should cultivate a
scar out of proportion to any wound. Englishmen liked moreover to be
comfortable, said Isabel, and there could be little comfort for Lord
Warburton, in the long run, in brooding over a self-sufficient
American girl who had been but a casual acquaintance. She flattered
herself that, should she hear from one day to another that he had
married some young woman of his own country who had done more to
deserve him, she should receive the news without a pang even of
surprise.
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