Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/188

 themselves very comfortable, the pair had taken up a practically permanent residence with me. I was very glad to have them, and assigned them a handsome set of apartments quite at the other end of the house. Here they lived in considerable splendour, seeing a great deal of company and assuming the position of social leaders. Victoria at least was admirably suited to play such a part, and I certainly did not grudge it to her; for my mother I can not speak so confidently. William Adolphus, having abandoned his military pursuits, led an idle lounging life. In consequence he grew indolent; his stoutness increased. I mention this personal detail merely because I believe that it had a considerable influence on Victoria's feelings toward him. Her varied nature included a vivid streak of the romantic, and with every expansion in his belt and every multiplication of the folds of his chin William Adolphus came to satisfy this instinct in her less and less. She sought other interests; she contrived to combine very dexterously the femme incomprise with the leader of fashion; she posed as a patron of letters and the arts, indulging in intellectual flirtations with professors and other learned folk. There was no harm in this, and William Adolphus would not have been in the smallest degree disturbed by it. He had all the self-confidence given by a complete want of imagination. Unhappily, however, she began to treat him with something very like contempt, allowed him to perceive that his company did not satisfy her spiritual and mental requirements, and showed herself more than willing that he should choose his own associates and dispose of his own time. He was not resentful; he confessed that his wife's friends bored him, and availed himself amply and good-naturedly of