Moths by Ouida — page 360: what you’re looking at

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

356 | . MOTHS. ‘“You were very good to take so much trouble,” said Vere, but her eyes said otherwise. Her eyes said: ‘‘ Why do you come to effend me in my solitude and insult me in my captivity ?” But in truth her visitor was innocent of any such thought. Human motives are not unmixed, and in the brilliant young duchess there had been an innocent vanity, a half-conscious con- ceit, in showing this high-born and high-bred woman, who had always disdained her, that she was above revenge and capable of ; a noble action. But beyond all vanity and conceit were the wish — to make Vere care for it, the indignation at tyranny of a spirited. temper, and the loyal impulse to stand by what she knew w stainless and aspersed. : Fuschia Mull, having’ once recovered her power of speech, was not silenced soon again. She had seated herself opposite the high window; her bright eyes studied the faceof Vere with a curiosity tempered by respect and heightened by wonder; she could flirt with princes and jest with sovereigns, and carry her head -high in the great world with all the insolence of a born ccquette and a born revolutionary, and since the day when she had become a duchess she had never ceased to assert herself in all the promi- nence and all the audacity that distinguished her; yet before this lonely woman she felt shy and afraid. ‘You aren’ta bit glad to see me,” she said, with a little tremor in her words, that flowed fast from thesheer habit of loquacity. ‘You never would take to me. No;I know. You’ve never for- given me about that coal, nor for my marrying your cousin. Well, that’s natural enough. Idon’t bear malice. There wasn’t any cause you should like me, though I think you’d like the baby if you saw him: he’s a real, true Herbert, but that’s neither here nor there. I wanted to see you, because, you know, they say such things in Paris and London, and all the others are such poor dawdles; they’ll never do anything. Even Frank him- self says I shouldn’t interfere between husband and wife; but people always say you shouldn’t interfere when they only mean you rine do. yourself a mischief; and I never was one to be afraid———” She paused a moment, and her bright eyes roamed over the dark oak-paneled monastic chamber with its carpet of lambs’ skins, and beyond its casements the flat and dreary plains and the low woods of endless firs. ‘*My!” she said, with a little shiver; ‘‘if it aren’t worse than a clearin’ out West! Well, he’s a brute, anyhow Vere looked at her with a regard that stopped her. “‘It is my own choice,” she said, coldly. ‘Yes, I know it is your own choice in a way,” returned the other, with vivacity; ‘‘ that is what I wanted to say to you. I told Frank the other day in Berlin, ‘She never liked me, and there wasn’t any particular reason why sheshould; but I always - did like her, and I don’t mean tostand still and see her put upon;’ you don’t mind my speaking so?—you are put upon, because you are just too good for this world, my dear. Don’t look at me so with your terrible eyes; I don’t mean any offense. You know they say all sorts of things in society, and some say one thing , comicbooks.co : ~