nt smile.

"Fancy!" said she. "Mother says I must have forty frocks."

"My dear," said I, "have four hundred."

"But isn't it a lot?"

"I suppose it is," I remarked. "But have anything you ought to have. You
like the frocks, Elsa?"

She gave that little emphatic double nod of hers.

We talked no more of the frocks then, but during the few days which
followed Elsa's perusal of Wetter's speech there was infinite talk of
frocks and all the rest of the furnishings and appurtenances of Elsa's
new rank. The impulse which moved women so different as my mother, the
Duchess, and Victoria, to a common course of conduct was doubtless based
on an universal woman's instinct. All the three seemed to set themselves
to dazzle the girl with the glories and pomp that awaited her; at the
same time William Adolphus became pressing in his claims on my company.
Now Victoria never really supposed that I desired to spend my leisure
with William Adolphus; she set him in motion when she had reason to
believe that I had better not spend it with some other person. So it had
been in the days of the Countess and in Coralie's epoch; so it was now.
The idea was obvious; just at present it was better for Elsa to think of
her glories than to be too much with me; she was to be led to the place
of sacrifice with a bandage over her eyes, a bandage that obscured the
contrasted visions of Wetter's imagination and of my actual self. I saw
their plan and appreciated it, but seeing did not forbid yielding. I was
not hoodwinked, but neither was I stirred to resistance. It seemed to me
then that kindness lay in not obtruding myself upon her, in being as
little with her as courtesy and appearances allowed, in asking the
smallest possible amount of her thoughts and making the least possible
claim on her life. They asked me to efface myself, to court oblivion, to
hide behind the wardrobe. It was all done with a soothing air, as though
it were a temporary necessity, as though with a little patience the mood
would pass, almost as though Elsa had some little ailment which would
disappear in a few days; while it lasted, men were best out of the way,
and would show delicacy by asking no questions. The way in which women
act, look, and speak, when they desire to create that impression, is
clear and unmistakable; a wise man goes about his business or retires to
his smoking-room, his papers, and his books.

The treatment seemed to answer well, and its severity was gr