‘Surprised? I don’t know what you mean by surprise. It wouldn’t be that; it would be a feeling very much worse.’

Isabel walked on again; she was silent for some minutes. ‘I’m very sure that, highly as I already think of you, my opinion of you, if I should know you well, would only rise. But I’m by no means sure that you wouldn’t be disappointed. And I say that not in the least out of conventional modesty; it’s perfectly sincere.’

‘I’m willing to risk it, Miss Archer,’ her companion replied.

‘It’s a great question, as you say. It’s a very difficult question.’

‘I don’t expect you of course to answer it outright. Think it over as long as may be necessary. If I can gain by waiting I’ll gladly wait a long time. Only remember that in the end my dearest happiness depends on your answer.’

‘I should be very sorry to keep you in suspense,’ said Isabel.

‘Oh, don’t mind. I’d much rather have a good answer six months hence than a bad one to-day.’

‘But it’s very probable that even six months hence I shouldn’t be able to give you one that you’d think good.’

‘Why not, since you really like me?’

‘Ah, you must never doubt that,’ said Isabel.

‘Well then, I don’t see what more you ask!’

‘It’s not what I ask; it’s what I can give. I don’t think I should suit you; I really don’t think I should.’

‘You needn’t worry about that. That’s my affair. You needn’t be a better royalist than the king.’

‘It’s not only that,’ said Isabel; ‘but I’m not sure I wish to marry any one.’

‘Very likely you don’t. I’ve no doubt a great many women begin that way,’ said his lordship, who, be it averred, did not in the least believe in the axiom he thus beguiled his anxiety by uttering. ‘But they’re frequently persuaded.’

‘Ah, that’s because they want to be!’ And Isabel lightly laughed.

Her suitor’s countenance fell, and he looked at her for a while in silence. ‘I’m afraid it’s my being an Englishman that makes you hesitate,’ he said presently. ‘I know your uncle thinks you ought to marry in your own country.’

Isabel listened to this assertion with some interest; it had never occurred to her that Mr Touchett was likely to discuss her matrimonial prospects with Lord Warburton. ‘Has he told you that?’

‘I remember his making the remark. He spoke perhaps of Americans generally.’

‘He appears himself to have found it very pleasant to live in England.’ Isabel spoke in a manner that might have seemed a little perverse, but which expressed both her constant perception of her uncle’s outward felicity and her general disposition to elude any obligation to take a restricted view.

It gave her companion hope, and he immediately cried with warmth: ‘Ah, my dear Miss Archer, old England’s a very good sort of country, you know! And it will be better when we’ve furbished it up a little.’