an
intolerable propriety, ungraced by a scrap of uncertainty; its stages
had been marked, numbered, and catalogued beforehand. Bederhof knew the
wedding-day to within a fortnight, the settlement to within a shilling,
the addresses of congratulation to a syllable. To this knowledge we were
all privy. God save us, how we played the hypocrite!

I am fully aware that there are men to whom these feelings would not
have occurred. There are probably women in regard to whom nobody would
have experienced them in a very keen form. Insensibility is infectious.
We have few scruples in regard to the unscrupulous. We feel that the
exact shade of colour is immaterial when we present a new coat to a
blind man. Had Hammerfeldt left as his legacy the union with some rude
healthy creature, to follow his desire might have been an easy
thing--one which, on a broad view of my life, would have been
relatively insignificant. I should have disliked my duty and done it, as
I did a thousand things I disliked. But I should not have been afflicted
with the sense that where I endured ten lashes another endured a
thousand; that, being a fellow-sufferer, I seemed the executioner; that,
myself yearning to be free, I was busied in forging chains. It was in
this light that Elsa made me regard myself, so that every word to her
from my lips seemed a threat, every approach an impertinence, every hour
of company I asked a forecast of the lifelong bondage that I prepared
for her. This was my unhappy mood, while Victoria laughed, jested, and
spurred me on; while William Adolphus opined that Elsa must get used to
me; while Cousin Elizabeth smiled open motherly encouragement; while
Princess Heinrich moved through the appropriate figures as though she
graced a stately minuet. I had come to look for little love in the
world; I was afflicted with the new terror that I must be hated.

Yet she did not hate me; or, at least, our natures were not such as to
hate one another or to be repugnant naturally. Nay, I believe that we
were born to be good and appreciative friends. Sometimes in those early
days we found a sympathy of thought that made us for the moment intimate
and easy, forgetful of our obligation, and frankly pleased with the
society which we afforded one another. Soon I came to enjoy these
intervals, to look and to plan for them. In them I seemed to get
glimpses of what my young cousin ought to be always; but they were brief
and fleeting. An intrusion ended