When my years and my mood are considered, it may appear that I had
enough to do in keeping my own life in the channel of wisdom and
discretion. So it seemed to myself, and I was rather amused at being
called upon to exert a good influence or even a wholesome authority over
William Adolphus; it was so short a time since he had been summoned to
perform a like office toward me. Yet after breakfast the next day
Victoria came to me, dressed in a subdued style and speaking in low
tones; she has always possessed a dramatic instinct. She had been, it
seemed, unable to remain unconscious of the gossip afoot; of her own
feelings she preferred to say nothing (she repeated this observation
several times); what she thought about was the credit of the family; and
of the family, she took leave to remind me, I was (I think she said, by
God's will) the head. I could not resist remarking how times had
changed; less than a year ago she had sent William Adolphus, sober,
staid, panoplied in the armour of contented marriage, to wrestle with my
errant desires. Victoria flushed and became just a little less meek.

"What's the good of going back to that?" she asked.

"None; it is merely amusing," said I.

The flush deepened.

"Will you allow me to be insulted?" she cried.

"Let us be cool. You've yourself to thank for this, Victoria. Why aren't
you pleasanter to him?"

"Oh, he's--I'm all I ought to be to him."

"I don't know what you are to him, you're very little with him."

I suppose that these altercations assume much the same character in all
families. They are necessarily vulgar, and the details of them need not
be recalled. For myself, I must confess that my sister found me in a
perverse mood; she, on her side, was in the unreasonable temper of a
woman who expects fidelity but does not show appreciation. I suggested
this point for her consideration.

"Well, if I don't appreciate him, whose fault was it I married him?" she
cried.

"I don't know. Whose fault is it that I'm going to marry Elsa
Bartenstein? Whose fault is anything? Whose fault is it that Coralie
Mansoni is a pretty woman?"

"I've never seen her."

"Ah, you wouldn't think her pretty if you had."

Victoria looked at me for a few seconds; then she suddenly drew up a low
chair and sat down at my feet. She turned her face up toward mine and
took my hand. Well, we never really disliked one another, Victoria and
I.

"Mother's so horrid about it," she said.

It