hat was due to them." I didn't see her
again till she was starting for Germany. And, Richie, she thinks you
can never forgive her. She wrote me word that the princess is of another
mind, but her own opinion, she says, is based upon knowing you.'

'Good heaven! how little!' cried I.

Temple did me a further wrong by almost thanking me on Janet's behalf
for my sustained love for her, while he praised the very qualities of
pride and a spirited sense of obligation which had reduced her to dread
my unforgivingness. Yet he and Janet had known me longest. Supposing
that my idea of myself differed from theirs for the simple reason that
I thought of what I had grown to be, and they of what I had been through
the previous years? Did I judge by the flower, and they by root and
stem? But the flower is a thing of the season; the flower drops off: it
may be a different development next year. Did they not therefore judge
me soundly?

Ottilia was the keenest reader. Ottilia had divined what could be
wrought out of me. I was still subject to the relapses of a not
perfectly right nature, as I perceived when glancing back at my thought
of 'An odd series of accidents!' which was but a disguised fashion of
attributing to Providence the particular concern, in my fortunes: an
impiety and a folly! This is the temptation of those who are rescued and
made happy by circumstances. The wretched think themselves spited, and
are merely childish, not egregious in egoism. Thither on leads to a
chapter--already written by the wise, doubtless. It does not become an
atom of humanity to dwell on it beyond a point where students of the
human condition may see him passing through the experiences of the flesh
and the brain.

Meantime, Temple and I, at two hand-basins, soaped and towelled, and
I was more discreet toward him than I have been to you, for I reserved
from him altogether the pronunciation of the council of senators in the
secret chamber of my head. Whether, indeed, I have fairly painted the
outer part of myself waxes dubious when I think of his spluttering laugh
and shout; 'Richie, you haven't changed a bit--you're just like a boy!'
Certain indications of external gravity, and a sinking of the natural
springs within characterized Temple's approach to the responsible
position of a British husband and father. We talked much of Captain
Welsh, and the sedate practical irony of his imprisoning one like Edbury
to discipline him on high seas, as well