Who is right, the narrator or Mrs Gould? On the surface, it seems as if Mrs Gould
is responding to the narrator (who is virtually ordering us to adore her) with
a bit of charming self-deprecation. But the shocking contrast of these sentences,
concluding a paragraph about her role as conqueror, suggests an option with bleak
political overtones: that when one conquers, one is adored because one
is a monster.