He was too social to be a captain of the socially insurgent; imagination expired.
But having a courageous Nataly to second him!--how then?
It was the succour needed.

Then he would have been ready to teach the world that Nature--honest Nature--is more to be prized than Convention: a new Era might begin.
The thought was tonic for an instant and illuminated him springingly.

It sank, excused for the flaccidity by Nataly's want of common adventurous daring.

She had not taken to Lakelands; she was purchasing furniture from a flowing purse with a heavy heart--unfeminine, one might say; she preferred to live obscurely; she did not, one had to think--but it was unjust: and yet the accusation, that she did not cheerfully make a strain and spurt on behalf of her child, pressed to be repeated.
These short glimpses at reflection in Victor were like the verberant twang of a musical instrument that has had a smart blow, and wails away independent of the player's cunning hand.

He would have said, that he was more his natural self when the cunning hand played on him, to make him praise and uplift his beloved: mightily would it have astonished him to contemplate with assured perception in his own person the Nature he invoked.