"But it must be in her own way. She is romantic. She thinks everybody else must be the same. You and I know, Augustin, that things of that kind occupy a very small part of a man's life. My sex deludes itself. And when a man occupies the position you do, it's absurd to suppose that he pays much attention to them."
"No doubt Cousin Elizabeth exaggerates," said I, standing in a respectful attitude before my mother.
"Well, I daresay you remember the time when Victoria was a girl. You recollect her folly? But you and I were firm—you behaved very well then, Augustin—and the result is that she is most suitably and most happily married."
I bowed. I did not think that any agreement of mine could be worthy of the magnificent boldness of Princess Heinrich's statement.
"Girls are silly; they pass through a silly time," she pursued, smiling.
A sudden remembrance shot across me.
"It doesn't do to take any notice of such things," said I gravely.
Happily, perhaps, Princess Heinrich was not awake to the fact that she herself was being quoted to herself.
"I'm glad to hear you say so," she said. "You have your work to do. Don't waste your time in thinking of girls' megrims—or of their mothers' nonsense."
I left her presence with a strong sense that Providence had erred in not making her a saint, a king, or anything else that demands a resolute repression of human infirmities. Some people are content to triumph over their own weaknesses; my mother had an eye also for the frailty of others.