NDERLY... I love you FOR YOURSELF, and I love in you the dear child
whose welfare I tenderly watched." He had gone through much; yet, if
life had its disappointments, it had its satisfactions too. "I have
all the honours that can be given, and I am, politically speaking, very
solidly established." But there were other things besides politics,
there were romantic yearnings in his heart. "The only longing I still
have is for the Orient, where I perhaps shall once end my life, rising
in the west and setting in the east." As for his devotion to his
niece, that could never end. "I never press my services on you, nor my
councils, though I may say with some truth that from the extraordinary
fate which the higher powers had ordained for me, my experience, both
political and of private life, is great. I am ALWAYS READY to be useful
to you when and where and it may be, and I repeat it, ALL I WANT IN
RETURN IS SOME LITTLE SINCERE AFFECTION FROM YOU."

VI

The correspondence with King Leopold was significant of much that still
lay partly hidden in the character of Victoria. Her attitude towards
her uncle had never wavered for a moment. To all his advances she had
presented an absolutely unyielding front. The foreign policy of England
was not his province; it was hers and her Ministers'; his insinuations,
his entreaties, his struggles--all were quite useless; and he must
understand that this was so. The rigidity of her position was the more
striking owing to the respectfulness and the affection with which it was
accompanied. From start to finish the unmoved Queen remained the devoted
niece. Leopold himself must have envied such perfect correctitude; but
what may be admirable in an elderly statesman is alarming in a maiden
of nineteen. And privileged observers were not without their fears. The
strange mixture of ingenuous light-heartedness and fixed determination,
of frankness and reticence, of childishness and pride, seemed to augur
a future that was perplexed and full of dangers. As time passed the less
pleasant qualities in this curious composition revealed themselves more
often and more seriously. There were signs of an imperious, a peremptory
temper, an egotism that was strong and hard. It was noticed that the
palace etiquette, far from relaxing, grew ever more and more inflexible.
By some, this was attributed to Lehzen's influence; but, if that was
so, Lehzen had a willing pupil; for the slightest infringements of
the freezing