"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 was an appeal to an old time-honoured alliance, sanctified by common sorrows, endeared by stolen victories shared in fearful secrecy.
"She says it's my fault, just as you do. But you know her way."
I became conscious that what I had said would be, in fact, singularly hard to bear when it fell from Princess Heinrich's judicial lips.
"She told me that I had lost him, and that I had only myself to thank for it; and—she said it was perhaps partly because my complexion had lost its freshness." Victoria paused, and then ended, "That's a lie, you know."
I seemed to be young again; we were again laying our heads together, with intent to struggle against our mother. I cared not a groat for William Adolphus, but it would be pleasant to me to help my sister to bring him back to his bearings; and the more pleasant in view of Princess Heinrich's belief that the things could not be done.
"As far as being pleasant to him goes," Victoria resumed, "I don't believe that the creature's pleasant to him either. At least he came home in a horribly bad temper last night."