She often saw with sympathy the suffering in which people were involved while carrying out her wishes. This insight never deflected Hermione’s will, but it made her charming to serve. She was extremely generous in ways which caused her no inconvenience, and her manner in getting her wants made known was little short of exquisite. Hermione’s confidential maid, who was a Roman Catholic, firmly believed that if the Princess could be led to embrace the true faith, she would eventually be canonised. Hermione was of the stuff out of which the most perfect Mother Superiors are made. As a lady Abbess she would have been feared and adored by all her nuns, and no one except, perhaps, an impotent Father Confessor in a moment of rebellion, would have thought of deposing her. The trained nurse believed that Hermione suffered from a mysterious disease not yet discovered by the doctors. Hermione had suggested to her that nurses really understood illness far more thoroughly than medical men; and she gave the nurse five guineas a week, and a series of beautiful hats. Nurse Davies frequently told people that the Princess Girla often reminded her of Florence Nightingale and Joan of Arc. Her body was pathetically frail but her spirit was indomitable. Torture was nothing to her. Hermione had an iron self-control even as a child. She had behaved faultlessly. No one had ever had to correct her manners. She had had a young and jealous mother, who first adored and spoiled her, and when Hermione reached the age of fifteen, had turned against her with an antagonism as fierce as it was secret. Hermione had for a time meditated a friendly alliance with her father, but she gave up the idea when she discovered that Mr. Brett refused to take her on her own valuation, and never permitted any criticism of his wife. Theodora fought her daughter for every human soul that came into the house. They both had beauty and wit, Theodora had experience and Hermione youth. They were very evenly matched combatants, but the extra weight of authority possessed by Theodora weighed down the scale. Hermione decided at eighteen that she would leave her home. She gained her father’s consent to travel with friends of his to Europe; but she went without her mother’s approval. Theodora resented Europe, except for clothes. She would have liked to rule in Paris but Mr. Brett had refused to give her any assistance. European countries were strange as well as illusory. They would not permit Theodora to rule without her husband. So she turned her back upon Europe and took up New York. But an instinct warned her that Hermione would conquer the old world, and leave her perpetually dissatisfied with the new. When Hermione left America she decided never to return to it except as a visitor, and when she could take precedence of her mother.