One of her biographers speaks with a sort of ecstatic surprise of the
fact that the Princess was "affable--even gay," and that she "laughed and
chatted like other little girls." And yet she must early have perceived
that she was not quite like other little girls, but set up and apart.
Though reared with all the simplicity practicable for a Princess Royal,
she must have been conscious of a magic circle drawn round her, of a
barrier impalpable, but most real, which other children could not
voluntarily overpass. She must have seen that they could not call out to
her to "come and play!" that however shy she might feel, she must propose
the game, or the romp, as later she had to propose marriage. She even was
obliged to quarrel, if quarrel she did, all alone by herself. Any
resistance on the part of her playmates would have been a small variety
of high treason. She must sometimes, with her admirable good sense, have
been wearied and disgusted by so much concession, conciliation, and
consideration, and may have envied less fortunate or unfortunate mortals
who can give and take hard knocks, for whom less is demanded, and of whom
less is expected.
She may have tired of her very name, with its grand prefixes and no
affix, and longed to be Victoria Kent, or _Something_--Jones, Brown,
or Robinson.
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