Moths by Ouida — page 227: what you’re looking at

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

MOTHS. | 923 read is perfect. I send my ponies on to wait for me by the Chorynskyclause. And you?” “I have left my horse, or rather Duke Ludwig’ s horse, to fol¢ low me. She is a young mare, and needs one’s attention, which spoils the pleasures of the wood. What a grand country it is! If it did not rain so often it would be Arcadia. Are you strong enough to walk so far, madame?’ The *“‘madame’”’ hurt him to say, and hurt her to hear. She answered a little hurriedly, that she liked walking—it never hurt her—in Paris she could walk so little, that tired her far more. And Correze, unasked but unrepulsed, strolled on beside her, the grim white-bearded mujik behind them. she was dressed with perfect simplicity in something cream- hued and soft, but he thought that she looked lovelier than she had done even in her jewels and her nenuphars at night. “O gioventu primavera della vital’ he thought. ‘‘Even a tyrant like ‘the Muscovite cannot altogether spoil its glories.’ They had come now into the fragrant gloom of the forest, where the trees stood thick as bowmen in a fight in olden days, and the mountains rose behind them stern and blue like tem- pest-clouds, while the silence was full of the fresh sound of rushing waters. Loris was darting hither and thither, chasing hares, scenting foxes, starting birds of all species, but never going very far afield from his mistress. They walked on almost in silence; the woodland thad that beauty amidst which idle speech seems a sort ir profanation; and Correze was musing: “Shall I tell her the truth, and frighten her and disgust her, and never see her face again, except across the gas-glare of the Grand Opera? Or shall I keep silence, and try to deserve her trust, and try and be some shield between her and the world they have cast her into, and become in time, perhaps, of some aid and service to her? One way is selfish and easy; the other——” He knew himself, and knew women, too well to be blind to any of the dangers that would befall both in the latter course; but an infinite compassion was in him for this young and beau- tiful woman; a deep tenderness was in him for her—mournful and wistful—quelling passion. He forever reproached himself that he had not followed his impulse, and cast prudence to the winds, and stayed by the gray northern sea and Saved her, whilst yet there had been time, from the world and from her mother. They paced onward side by side. The old man-servant followed with a frown on his brows. He knew Correze by sight, he had seen all St. Petersburg wild with adoration of their idol, running before his sledge, and strewing flowers and evergreens on the frozen earth in his honor; but he did not think it fitting for a mere foreign singer to walk side by side with the Princess Zouroff. Nevertheless he kept respect=-_ fully his due distance behind them, marveling, only whether it ‘would lie within his duty to tell his master of this strange sume mer’s day stroll. com co ao) boo ative SS