Moths by Ouida — page 294: what you’re looking at

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

290 | | MOTHS. hor your brother, ¢ could strike him as a brave man strikes a — coward, but I havetaken an oath to him, and I will be true to it, What has the law to do with one’s own honor?” _ It is happy for hire that you have such unusual feeling,” said Madame Nelaguine, with a little acrimony, because she herself had been far from guiltless as a wife. ‘‘ But your knight, your defender, your hero with the golden nightinyale in his throat? Are you as cold to him? Did you not see that while he sang his heart was breaking, and he would have been giad if his song had been a sword ?” They were imprudent words, and she knew it, yet she could not resist the utterance of them, for even in her admiration of Vere a certain bitterness. and a certain’ impatience moved her against a grandeur of principle that appeared to her strained and out of nature. Vere, who was sitting leaning a little back against the sea-wall, raised herself and sat erect. A warmth of color came upon her face, her eyes grew angered and luminous. ‘*T will not affect to misunderstand you,” she said, tranquilly, ‘‘but you misunderstand both him and me. Long, long ago, ] think, he could have loved me, and I—could have loved him. But fate had it otherwise. Heis my knight, you say; perhaps, but only as they were knights in days of old, without hope and without shame. I think you had no need to say this to me, and, perhaps, no right to say it.” The Princess Nadine touched her hand reverently. ‘‘ No, Thad no right, Vera. ButI thank you for answering me so. Dear, you are not of our world. You live in it, but it does not touch you. Your future is dark, but you bear the lamp of honor in our hand,. We think the light old-fashioned and dull, but it urns in dark places where we, without it, stumble and fall, Correze did not sing in vain; my brother, I think, will say ne more to you of the sables and the Promenade des Anglais.” —_. ‘‘1t matters very little whether he does or not,” said Vere. ‘** J, should not drive there, and he knows it. Will you be so good ag not to speak again of these things? I think words only make them harder to bear, and seem to lower one to the level of th women whocomplain.” : ‘‘ But to speak is so natural——” ‘* Not to me.” : it was three o’clock in the December day; the mistral was blowing, although in this sheltered nook of the Gulf of Villa-. franca it was but little felt, the sky was overcast, the waves were rolling in heavy with surf, little boats, going on their way to Sans Soupir or Saint Jean, plowed through deep waters. Vere moved towards the house. Madame Nelaguine went down towards the garden to visit the young palms she was rearing for the palace in the Newski Pros- pect, where heated air was to replace the lost south to them, as the fever of society replaces the dreams of our youth. Her husband met Vere in the entrance and stopped her there: his face was reddened and dark! his heavy jaw had the look of the pull-dog’s: his eyes had a furtive and ferocious glance; it it, he : Eomicbooks:co