Once, it is true, there had been a certain boy—but he had passed out of her life—oh! years ago, and, what is more, had affronted her by refusing to answer a letter which she had written to him, just, as she imagined—though of course this was only a guess—because of his ridiculous and unwarrantable jealousy and the atrocious pride that was his failing. Also she had read in the papers of a very brave act which he had done on the Alps, one which filled her with a pride that was not atrocious, but quite natural where an old playmate was concerned, and had noticed that it was a young lady whom he had rescued. That, of course, explained everything, and if her first supposition should be incorrect, would quite account for her having received no answer to her letter. It was true, however, that she had heard no more of this young lady, though scraps of gossip concerning Godfrey did occasionally reach her. For instance, she knew that he had quarrelled with his father because he would not enter the Church and was going into the army, a career which she much preferred, especially as she did not believe in the Church and could not imagine what Godfrey would look like in a black coat and a white tie. By the way, she wondered what he did look like now. She had an old faded photograph of him as a lanky youth, but after all this time he could not in the least resemble that. Well, probably he had grown as plain and uninteresting—as she was herself. It was wonderful that the American young man could have seen anything in her, but then, no doubt he went on in the same kind of way with half the girls he met. Thus reflected Isobel, and a little while later paid a last visit to the museum, which interested her more than any place in Mexico, perhaps because its exhibits strengthened her theories as to comparative religion, and shook off her feet the dust of what her American admirer had called that “antique land.” It was with a positive pang that from the deck of the steamship outside Vera Cruz she looked her last on the snows of the glorious peak of Orizaba, but soon these faded away into the skyline and with them her life in Mexico. Returning to England _via_ the West Indies in the company of her uncle who was coming home on leave before taking up an appointment as Minister to one of the South American republics, she was greeted on the platform at Waterloo by her father. Sir John Blake had by this time forgotten their previous disagreements, or, at any rate, determined to ignore them, and Isobel, who was now in her way a finished woman of the world, though she did not forget, had come to a like conclusion. So their meeting was cordial enough, and for a while, not a very long while, they continued to live together in outward amity, with a tacit understanding that they should follow their respective paths, unmolested by each other. CHAPTER XIV TOGETHER