Moths by Ouida — page 354: what you’re looking at

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

~~ 850 | | MOTHS. ehamber. ‘I will not take her back,” he muttered. ‘‘ Besides —probably—she would not come.” | ; e dared not say to his companion that he could not insist on his wife’s return without an open scandal, since she would for- ever refuse to receive or to visit the Duchesse de Sonnaz, once her guest and her friend. ‘‘ Besides, probably, she would not come?” echoed Jeanne de Sonnaz, with a shrill laugh that made his sullenness rage. ‘* My oor bear! is that all your growls and your teeth can do for yout Vou cannot master a woman of twenty, who has nothing in the world but what you gave her at your marriage. Frankly, it is too ridiculous. You must make a choice, if you would not be the laughing-stock of society; either you must have your wife here in Paris before all the world, and I will be the first to wel- come her, or you must justify your separation from her; one of the two.” ‘*T shall do neither.” | ‘“Then, mon ami, I shall be very sorry indeed, because we have been friends so long, but unless you do one or the other, and that speedily, I shall be obliged with infinite regret to side with your sister and all the House of Herbert against you. I shall be obliged to close my doors to you. I cannot know a man whois cruel to an innocent wife. There! you know Ido whatIsay. If will give you a week, two weeks, to think of it. Afterward I shall take my course according to yours, I shall be very sorry not to see you any more, my dear Sergius; but I should be more sorry if the world were to think I supported you in injustice and unkindness to Princess Zouroff. Please to go now; I have a million things to do, and a deputation about my creche is waiting for me down-stairs.” Sergius Zouroff went out of her house in a towering passion; ae it never occurred to him to separate from his tormentor. he had an empire over him that he had long ceased to resist, he could no more have lived without seeing Jeanne de Sonnaz than he could live without his draughts of brandy, his nights of gambling. As there is love without dominion, so there is domin- ion without love. He knew very well that she never wasted words, that she never made an empty menace. He knew that her calculations were always cool and keen, and that when she thought her own interests menaced she was pitiless. She would keep her word; that he knew well. What could he do? It was impossible to recall his wife, since he knew that his wife would never receive Jeanne de Sonnaz. The presence of his wife in Paris could only complicate and increase the difficulties that surrounded him: had he not banished her to Poland for that very cause? He cursed the inconsistencies and the insolences. of women. _ The submission of his wife to his will and his command, had softened his heart toward her; he had vague impulses of com- assion and of pardon toward this woman who was so unyield- ing in her dignity, so obedient in her actions, so silent under her wrongs. As the year before, after he had found her the victim of her mother’s falsehood, some better impulse, some tendere® — \ comicbooks.co