great
day, I saw suddenly a little flush on Elsa's cheek. She did not look
away or stammer, or make any other obvious concession to her
embarrassment, but the blush could not be denied access to her face and
came eloquent with its hint.

"And M. de Varvilliers--he will be there, I suppose?" she asked.

"I hope so; I have given directions that he shall be invited. You like
him, Elsa?"

"Yes," she said, not looking at me now, but straight in front of her, as
though he stood there in his easy heart-stealing grace. And for an
instant longer the flush flew his flag on her cheek.

But Struboff had been so mad as to fall in love with Coralie, and to
desire her love out of no compassion for her but sheerly for itself. Was
I not spared this pang? I do not know whether my state were worse or
better. For with him, even in direst misery, there would be love's own
mad hope, that denial of impossibility, that dream of marvellous change
which shoots across the darkest gloom of passion. Or at least he could
imagine her loving as he loved, and thereby cheat the wretched thing
that was. I could not. In dreary truth, I was toward her as she toward
me, and before us both there stretched a lifetime. If an added sting
were needed, I found it in a perfectly clear consciousness that a great
many people would have been absolutely content, and, as onlookers of our
case, would have wondered what all the trouble was about. There are
those who from a fortunate want of perception are called sensible; just
as Elsa by her resolute evasion of truth would be accorded the title of
philosophical.

Victoria was the prophet of the actual, picking out with optimistic eye
its singular abundance of blessedness. I do not think that she reminded
me that Elsa might have had but one eye, one leg, or a crooked back,
but her felicitations ran on this strain. Their obvious artificiality
gave them the effect of sympathy, and Victoria would always sanction
this interpretation by a kiss on departure. But she had her theory; it
was that Elsa only needed to be wooed. The "only" amused me, but even
with that point waived I questioned her position. It left out
imagination, and it left out Varvilliers, who had become imagination's
pet. Nevertheless, Victoria spoke out of experience; she did not blush
at declaring herself "after all very comfortable" with William Adolphus.
Granted the argument's sincerity, its force could not be denied with
honesty.

"We're not romant