Measured in that way, who had ever succeeded?
The dreams of one's youth, why they were enchanting, they were divine! Who had ever seen such things come to pass?
"I myself--a few of them," Isabel ventured to answer.
"Already?
They must have been dreams of yesterday." "I began to dream very young," Isabel smiled.
"Ah, if you mean the aspirations of your childhood--that of having a pink sash and a doll that could close her eyes." "No, I don't mean that." "Or a young man with a fine moustache going down on his knees to you." "No, nor that either," Isabel declared with still more emphasis.
Madame Merle appeared to note this eagerness.

"I suspect that's what you do mean.

We've all had the young man with the moustache.

He's the inevitable young man; he doesn't count." Isabel was silent a little but then spoke with extreme and characteristic inconsequence.

"Why shouldn't he count?
There are young men and young men." "And yours was a paragon--is that what you mean ?" asked her friend with a laugh.