Moths by Ouida — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

a4 MOTHS. dropped leaves at her fect. She was smoking—which was & pity; the cigarette did not agree with the roses. ** Madame,” cried Correze, as he sauntered on and disengaged her a little from the others, ‘‘I have never seen anything so ex- quisite as your young daughter. Will you believe that I mean no compliment when I say so?’ ‘*My dear Correze! She is only a child!” ‘She is not a child. What would you say, madame, if I told you that for full five minutes I had the madness to think to-day that I would pay my forfeit to Baden and Vienna for the sake of ‘staying hére?” ‘‘ Heaven forbid you should do any such thing! You would turn her head in a week!” ‘‘What would you say, madame,” he continued, with a little laugh, disregarding her interruption, ‘‘ what would you say if I told you that I, Correze, had actually had the folly to faney for five minutes that a vagabond nightingale might make his nest for good in one virgin heart? What would you say, miladi?” ‘‘ My dear Correze, if you were by any kind of possibility talk- ing seriously ——” “T am talking quite seriously—or let us suppose that I am, What would you say, miladi?” ‘‘T should say, my dear Correze, that you are too entirely captivating to be allowed to say such things even in an idle jest, and that you would be always most perfectly charming in every capacity but one.” ‘¢ And that one is?” ‘¢ As a husband for anybody!” ‘‘I suppose you are right,” said Correze, with a little sigh. ‘©Will you let me light my cigarette at yours?” An hour later he was on his way to Brussels in the middle hours of the starry fragrant summer night. CHAPTER VI. RAPHAEL DE CORREZE had said no more than the truth of him- _ self that miorning by the sweet-brier hedge on the edge of the Norman cliffs. All the papers and old documents that were needful to prove him the lineal descendant of the great Savoy family of Correze were safe in his bureau in Paris, but he spoke no more of them than he spoke of the many love-letters and imprudent avowals that were also locked away in caskets and cabinets in the only place that in any way could be called his home, his apartment in the Avenue del’Empereur. What wastheuse? All Marquis and Peer of France though he was by descent, he was none the less only a tenor singer, and in his heart of hearts he was too keenly yen to drag his old descent into the notice of men merely that e might look like a frivolous boaster, an impudent teller of empty tales. Noblesse oblige, he had often said to himself, resist- ing temptation in his oft-tempted career, but no one ever heard him say aloud that paternoster of princes. His remembrance of his race had been always with him like a talisinan, but he wore comicbooks:¢co