right.

"No, I've--I've not forgotten her," I murmured. "Does she ever come to
see you, mother--here at Artenberg, I mean?"

"No, darling," said my mother.

I did not pursue the subject. I had eyes good enough to see that my
dislike for Krak was pleasanter to my mother than my liking for the
Countess. Women seem to me to have the instinct of monopoly, and not to
care for a share of affection. Such, at least, was my mother's
temperament, intensified no doubt by the circumstance that in future
days my favour and liking might be matters of importance. She feared
from another woman just what she feared from Hammerfeldt, his governor,
and his tutors; probably her knowledge of the world made her dread
another woman more than any number of men. She feared even Victoria, her
own daughter and my sister; but a woman, very pretty and sympathetic,
who would be only twenty-eight when I was eighteen, must have seemed to
her mind the greatest peril of all. It is one of the drawbacks of
conspicuous place that a man's likings and fancies, his merest whims,
are invested by others with an importance that throws its reflection
back on to his own mind; he is able to recollect only with an effort
that even in his case there are a good many things of no importance. I
did not make these observations as a small boy at Artenberg, but even as
a small boy I knew very well that the Countess von Sempach would not be
invited to the Schloss. Nor was she. My mother guarded the gate, a
jealous angel.

Thus a pleasant summer passed at Artenberg, and in the autumn we
returned to Forstadt. Then I had my procession, though it seemed
scarcely as brilliant or interesting as that wherein Victoria had held
first place while I looked down, a highly satisfied spectator, from
heaven. I was eleven years old now, and perhaps just the first bloom was
wearing off the wonder of the world. For recompense, but not in full
requital, I was more awake to the meaning of things around me, and I
fear much more awake to the importance of myself, Augustin. Now I
appropriated the cheers at which before I had marvelled, and approved
the enthusiasm that had before amused me. My mother greeted these signs
in me; since I was to leave the women she would now have me a man as
soon as might be; besides, she had a woman's natural impatience for my
full growth. They love us most as babies, when they are Providence to
us; least as boys, when we make light of them; more again when as me