th the Formidable Lady, and, although by
no means enraptured, seemed to be conscious that she might have come off
worse. What was distasteful in Clotho's terms Elsa attempted to reduce
to insignificance by a disciplined arrangement of her thoughts and
emotions. Much can be done if one will be firm with would-be vagrants of
the mind. The pleasant may be given prominence; the disagreeable
relegated to obscurity; the attractive installed in the living
apartments; the repellant locked in a distant cellar, whence their
ill-conditioned cries are audible occasionally only and in the distance.
What might have been is sternly transformed from a beautiful vision into
a revolting peril, and in this new shape is invoked to applaud the
actual and vilify what is impossible. This attitude of mind is thought
so commendable as to have won for itself in popular speech the name of
philosophy--so even with words Clotho works her will. Elsa, then, in
this peculiar sense of the term was philosophical about the business.
She was balanced in her attitude, and, left to herself, would maintain
equilibrium.

"She's growing fonder and fonder of you every day," Cousin Elizabeth
whispered in my ear.

"I hope," said I, with a reminiscence, "that I am not absolutely
repulsive to her." And in order not to puzzle Cousin Elizabeth with any
glimmer of truth I smiled.

"My dearest Augustin" (that she seemed to say "Struboff" was a childish
trick of my imagination), "what an idea!" ("What a question, my dear M.
Struboff!")

I played too much, perhaps, with my parallel, but I was not its slave. I
knew myself to be unlike Struboff (in my case Coralie scouted the idea
of a fresh slice of bread). I knew Elsa to be of very different
temperament from Coralie's. These variances did not invalidate the
family likeness; a son may be very like his father, though the nose of
one turns up and the other's nose turns down. We were, after making all
allowances for superficial differences--we were both careers, Struboff
and I. I need none to point out to me my blunder; none to say that I was
really fortunate and cried for the moon. It is admitted. I was offered a
charming friendship; it was not enough. I could give a tender
friendship; I knew that it was not enough.

And there was that other thing which went to my heart, that possibility
which must ever be denied realization, that beginning doomed to be
thwarted. As we were talking once of all who were to come on the