A ROMANCE OF RATIONS.
"Not like to like, but like in difference."
"The Princess."
I have always misjudged Victorine—I admit it now with shame. While other girls have become engaged—and disengaged quite soon after—she has remained unattached and solitary. As I watched the disappointed suitors turn sadly away I put it down to pride and self-sufficiency, but I was wrong. I see now that she always had the situation well in hand.
As for Algernon, he is the sort of man who writes sonnets to lilies and butterflies and the rosy-fingered dawn—this last from hearsay as he really knows nothing about it. He is prematurely bald and suffers from the grossest form of astigmatism, and I thought that no woman would ever love him. I never dreamt that Victorine had even noticed he was there.
One day I heard that they were engaged. It was too hard for me to understand.
On the third morning I went to see her.
"Victorine," I said, "you have never loved before?"
"Never," she assented softly.