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his strength would only throw the falsity of his position into
relief. Isabel was not incapable of tasting any advantage of
position over a person of this quality, and though little de-
sirous to flaunt it in his face she could enjoy being able to say
‘You know you oughtn’t to have written to me yourself!’ and
to say it with an air of triumph.
Caspar Goodwood raised his eyes to her own again; they
seemed to shine through the vizard of a helmet. He had a
strong sense of justice and was ready any day in the year—
over and above this—to argue the question of his rights.
‘You said you hoped never to hear from me again; I know
that. But I never accepted any such rule as my own. I warned
you that you should hear very soon.’
‘I didn’t say I hoped never to hear from you,’ said Isabel.
‘Not for five years then; for ten years; twenty years. It’s
the same thing.’
‘Do you find it so? It seems to me there’s a great differ-
ence. I can imagine that at the end of ten years we might
have a very pleasant correspondence. I shall have matured
my epistolary style.’
She looked away while she spoke these words, knowing
them of so much less earnest a cast than the countenance
of her listener. Her eyes, however, at last came back to him,
just as he said very irrelevantly: ‘Are you enjoying your visit
to your uncle?’
‘Very much indeed.’ She dropped, but then she broke
out. ‘What good do you expect to get by insisting?
‘The good of not losing you.’
‘You’ve no right to talk of losing what’s not yours. And

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