Moths by Ouida — page 120: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

116 | MORPHS | Zouroff, in whose mind all women were alike, had almost been brought to believe in the honesty and steadfastness of the girl to whom he had given Loris, and he was at times disposed to be bitterly enraged against her because she had fallen in his sight by her abrupt submission; she seemed at heart no better than the rest. She abhorred him, yet she accepted him. No mere obedience could account for that acceptance without some weakness or some _cupidity of nature. it hardened him against her; it spoilt her lovely, pure childhood in his eyes; it made her shudder from him seem half hypocrisy. After all, he said to himself,where was she so very much higher than Casse-une-Croute? It was only the price that was aitered. When she came to know what Casse-une-Croute was, she said the same thing to herself. ‘* Do you believe in wicked people, miladi?” he said, the next evening, to Lady Dolly, as they sat together at the Fantaisies- Parisiennes. ‘Wicked peopie? Oh, dear, no—at least—yes,” said Lady Dolly, vaguely. ‘‘ Yes, I suppose Ido. I am afraid one must. One sees dreadful things in the papers; in society everybody is very much like everybody else—no?” Zourott laughed—the little, short, hard laugh that was char- acteristic of him. ‘*T think one need not goto the papers. I think youand Iare both doing evil enough to satisfy the devil—if a devil there be. But, if you donot mind it, I need not.” Lady Dolly was startled, then smiled. ‘‘ What droll things you say! And do not talk so of the ——. It doesn’t sound well. It’s an old-fashioned belief, I know, and not probable, they say now, but still—one never can tell——” And Lady Dolly, quite satisfied with herself, laughed her last laugh at the fun of the Belle Helene, and had her cloak folded round her, and went out on the arm of her future son-in-law. Such few great ladies as were already in Paris, passing through from the Channel coast to the Riviera, or from one. chateau to another, all envied her, she knew; and if anybody had ever said anything that was—that was not quite nice—nobody could say anything now when another fortnight her daughter would be Princesss Zouroff, | ‘Really, I never fancied at all I was clever, but I begin to _ think that I am,” she said in her self-complacency to herself. The idea that she could be wicked seemed quite preposterous to her when she thought it over. ‘‘ Harmless little me!’ she said to herself. True, she had felt wicked when she had met her daughter’s eye, but that was nonsense; the qualm had always gone away when she had taken her champagne at dinner or her ether in her bedroom. A fortnight later, the marriage of the head of the house of Zouroff was solemnized at the chapel of the English Embassy and the Russian church at Paris. . . So they have thrown an English maiden to our Tartar mino- taur! Oh, what chaste people they are, those English!” said a : “== comicbooks co