reconquer her. Perhaps even Adelaide would not have succeeded so easily
in effacing Severance's image had not he himself so quickly remarried.
Mathilde went several times to stay with the new household after Adelaide
in secret, tearful conference with her father had been forced to consent.

To Mathilde these visits had been an unacknowledged torture. She never
knew quite what to mention and what to leave untouched. There was always
a constraint between the three of them. Her father, when alone with her,
would question her, with strange, eager pauses, as to how her mother
looked. Her mother's successor, whom she could not really like, would
question her more searchingly, more embarrassingly, with an ill-concealed
note of jealousy in every word. Even at twelve years Mathilde was shocked
by the strain of hatred in her father's new wife, who seemed to reproach
her for fashion and fineness and fastidiousness, qualities of which the
girl was utterly unaware. She could have loved her little half-brother
when he appeared upon the scene, but Mrs. Severance did not encourage the
bond, and gradually Mathilde's visits to her father ceased.

As a child she had been curious about the reasons for the parting, but as
she grew older it had seemed mere loyalty to accept the fact without
asking why; she had perhaps not wanted to know why. But now, she saw, she
was to hear.

"Mathilde, do you still love your father?"

"I think I do, Mama. I feel very sorry for him."

"Why?"

"I don't know why. I dare say he is happy."

"I dare say he is, poor Joe." Adelaide paused. "Well, my dear, that was
the reason of our parting. One can pity a son or a brother, but not a
husband. Weakness kills love. A woman cannot be the leader, the guide,
and keep any romance. O Mathilde, I never want you to feel the
humiliation of finding yourself stronger than the man you love. That is
why I left your father, and my justification is his present happiness.
This inferior little person he has married, she does as well. Any one
would have done as well."

Mathilde was puzzled by her mother's evident conviction that the
explanation was complete. She asked after a moment:

"But what was it that made you think at first that you did love
him, Mama?"

"Just what makes you think you love this boy--youth, flattery, desire to
love. He was magnificently handsome, your father. I saw him admired by
other men, apparently a master; I was too young to judge, my dear. You