Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/84

 now, you would not care to visit Paris; and I long to go to Paris with your Majesty."

I did not pursue the subject. I was conscious of a disenchantment, begun by Victoria, continued by the Baron. The reaction made in favour of my mother. I acknowledged the wisdom of her firmness and an excuse for her anger. I realized her causes for annoyance and shame, and saw the hollowness of the lovers' pleas. I had thought the Princess very hard; I was now inclined to think that she had shown as much self-control as could be expected from her. Rather to my own surprise I found myself extending this more favourable judgment of her to other matters, entering with a new sympathy into her disposition, and even forgiving some harsh thing which I had never pardoned. The idea suggested itself to my mind, that even the rigours of the Styrian discipline had a rational relation to the position which the victims of it were destined to fill. She might be right in supposing that we could not be allowed the indulgence accorded to the common run of children. We were destined for a special purpose, and, if we were not made of a special clay, yet we must be fashioned into a special shape. It is hard to disentangle the influence of one event from that exerted by another. Perhaps the loss of Owen, and the consequently increased influence of Hammerfeldt over my life and thoughts, had as much to do with my new feelings as Victoria's love affair; but in any case I date from this time a fresh development of myself. I was growing into my kingship, beginning to realize the conception of it, and to fill up that conception in my own mind. This moment was of importance to me; for it marked the beginning of a period during which this idea of my position