The pleasure of her castle-building was but seldom interrupted by any thought of the shamefulness of her behaviour to him. That did not matter much! She could so easily make up for all he had suffered! Her selfishness closed her eyes to her own falsehood. Had she meant it truly she would have been right both for him and for herself. To have repented and become as noble a creature as Lenorme was capable of imagining her--not to say as God had designed her, would indeed have been to make up for all he had suffered. But the poor blandishment she contemplated as amends, could render him blessed only while its intoxication blinded him to the fact that it meant nothing of what it ought to mean, that behind it was no entire, heart-filled woman. Meantime, as the past, with its delightful imprudences, its trembling joys, glided away, swiftly widening the space between her and her false fears and shames, and seeming to draw with it the very facts themselves, promising to obliterate at length all traces of them, she gathered courage; and as the feeling of exposure that had made the covert of Liftore’s attentions acceptable, began to yield, her variableness began to re-appear, and his lordship to find her uncertain as ever. Assuredly, as his aunt said, she was yet but a girl incapable of knowing her own mind, and he must not press his suit. Nor had he the spur of jealousy or fear to urge him: society regarded her as his; and the shadowy repute of the bold-faced countess intercepted some favourable rays which would otherwise have fallen upon the young and beautiful marchioness from fairer luminaries even than Liftore.