<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
    <style>
        .container { font: 12px Ahem; color: red; width: 100px; -webkit-line-box-contain: block; line-box-contain: block; position: relative; }
        div { background: white; }
        .reference { position: absolute; left: 10px; width: 40px; height: 50px; background: black; } 
    </style>
</head>
<body>
There should be no red below.
<div class="container">
    <div class="reference"></div>
</div>


</body></html>