Moths by Ouida — page 317: what you’re looking at

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

MOTHS. 313 ‘‘ Well?’ said her husband, roughly, already in a measure ashamed of his violence, as the diamond star covered the carpet beneath his feet with sparkling atoms. } ‘‘What do you want me tosay? Iam your wife, and you can offend me in any way, and I cannot resent it. There is no use in: saying what I think of that.” He was silent, and in a measure subdued. He knew very well that his violence had been cowardly and unworthy, that he had disgraced his name and place, that he had been a coward and no gentleman. His new-born sense of fear and of veneration of her struggled with his incensed vanity and his irritated suspi- cions, ‘“Vera,” he muttered, only half aloud, ‘‘ before God, if you would let me, I could love you now!” | She shuddered. ‘‘Spare me that, at least!” He understood, and was silent. He glanced at her longingly, sullenly, furtively. The shattered jewel lay at his feet. ‘What is that singer to you?” he said, abruptly. ‘*A man who honors me. You do not.” f BS Were he only of my rank I would insult him, and shoot him ead.” Vere was silent. | ‘What do you say?” he muttered, impatient of her silence. ‘‘ He is of your rank, and he can defend himself. His hand is clean, and so also is his conscience.” ‘¢ Will you swear he is no lover of yours?” Her eyes fiashed, but she took the book of prayer lying on her © table, kissed it, and said— ‘‘T swear that certainly.’ Then she laid the book down, and, with an accent he had never heard from her, she turned suddenly on him, in a passion of in- | dignation that transformed ber coldness into fire. ‘‘ How dare you? how dare you?” she said, with a vibration in her voice that he had never heard there. ‘‘ Now that you have done me the last insult that a man can pass upon his wife, be satisfied, and go.” Then she put her hand out and pointed to the door. - He lingered, dazed and fascinated by that new power 1n her glance, that new meaning in her voice. ‘‘Women change like that when they love,” he said to her aloud. ‘‘Are you not of the new school, then? You know very well you have no fidelity from me. Why should you be faithful tome? They say you need not be.” She still seemed to him transfigured and risen above him. Her fair face had the glow of holy scorn, of just wrath, still on it. ‘‘Are your sins the measures of my duty?” she said, with un- utterable contempt. ‘‘Do you think if it were only for you, for you, that I were decent in my life and_ true to my obligation I should not years ago have failed and been the vilest thing that lives? You do not understand. Have you never heard of self- respect, of honor, and of God?” The words touched him, and the look upon her face awed him comicbooks co