'Very likely; but if she thinks Louis can stand Mary's deserting him—'
'It will be great pain, no doubt; but once over, he will be free.'
'It never will be over.'
'That is young-ladyism.'
'I never was a young lady, and I know what I mean. Mary may not be all he thinks her, and she may be dull enough to let her affection wear out; but I do not believe he will ever look at any one again, as he did after Mary on your wedding-day.'
'So you forbid him to be ever happy again!'
'Not at all, only in that one way. There are many others of being happy.'
'That one way meaning marriage.'
'I mean that sort of perfect marriage that, according to the saying, is made in heaven. Whether that could have been with Mary, I do not know her well enough to guess; but I am convinced that he will always have the same kind of memory of her that a man has of a first love, or first wife.'
'It may have been a mistake to drive him into the attachment, which Isabel thinks has been favoured by absence, leaving scope for imagination; but I cannot give up the hope that his days of happiness are yet to come.'