Moths by Ouida — page 223: what you’re looking at

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

MOTHS, » 219 martyr’s spirit and a heroine’s. courage in her, yet had she suc- cumbed to the first hour of pressure, the first whisper of ambi- _ tion, like the weakest and vainest creature ever born of woman. Fie had never understood, despite all his knowledge of Lady Dorothy, the sudden and unresisted sacrifice of her daughter. Her words now startled and bewildered him, and showed him a deeper deep than any of which he had dreamed. More versed in the world’s suspicions than she, he saw the keen glittering eyes of the Duchesse Jeanne studying them from the balcony, as she laughed and chattered with her chamber- lains and soldiers. He released the threads of the lace, and re- placed the pillow and bowed very low. “You do me too much honor, princess,’ he murmured, too gently for them to reach the keen ears of the brilliant spy of the balcony. “To accept my allegory was condescension; to in- terpret it was sympathy; to forgive itis mercy. For all three I thank you. Allow me——’” He bowed over her hand, which he scarcely touched, bowed again to Madame de Sonnaz, and then left the chamber. Vere took up her lace-work, and began afresh to entamgle the threads. Her heart was heavy. She thought that he condemned her; he seemed to her cold and changed. “How that stupid lace absorbs you, Vere!’? cried Jeanne de Sonnaz. “The Empress has sent to us to ride with her at four, and there is a little sauterie in the evening up there. You can- not refuse.”’ CHAPTER XX. THE next morning Correze, breakfasting at noon in the bay- window of the bright Speisesaal that looks on the three- eornered Platz and the trees on the esplanade, said to himself, ‘I ought to go.’’ But he did not resolve to go. The night before he had also,been summoned to the Schloss. He was famous for his captiousness to sovereigns, but he had been to this summons obedient, and had been welcomed by all, from their majesties to the big dog; and had taken his guitar, and sung, as he sang to please himself, and had been in his most brilliant and his most bewitching mood. In truth their majes- ties, charming and gracious and sympathetic though they were, had been of little account to him; what he had thought about, what he had sung to, was a tall slender form clothed in white, with water-lilies about her waist and throat, as though she were Undine. He approached her little; he looked at her always. The knowledge that she was there gave him inspiration; when he sang he surpassed himself; when he went away and strolled on foot down through the pine glades into the little town, he sang half aloud still; and an old forester, going to his work in gray dawn, told his wife that he had heard a Nia, with a voice like a nightingale, down in the heart of the woods, (@) ‘comicbooks b hth | eye SE ) 4114) eae | a. ve com.