Moths by Ouida — page 94: what you’re looking at

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

4 ; 4 [ ; . . PT ae tel : . ! os i A pin’ hen es ou F : : : ; } ' ' ‘we, : : yy ; ' i : rk 90. MOTHS. thing of the kind? She is charmed, my dear girl, charmed! What better future could she hope for, for you? The Zourofis are one of the greatest families in Europe, and Iam quite sure your sentiments, your jewels, your everything, will be worthy of the exalted place you will fill.” Vere’s face grew very cold. “My mother has sent you?” she said morerudely than her com- panion had ever been addressed in all her serene existence. ‘‘'Then will you kindly go back to her, Lady Stoat, and tell her itis of no use? I will not marry Prince Zouroff.” ‘‘That is not very prettily said, my dear. If I amcome to talk to you, itis certainly in your own interests only. I have seen young girls like you throw all their lives away for mere want of a little reflection.” ‘**T have reflected.” ‘* Reflected as much as sixteen can!—oh, yes. But that is not quite what Imean. I want you to reflect, looking through the glasses of my experience and affection, and your mother’s. You are very young, Vere.” — ‘ or oan Corday was almost as young asI am, and Jeanne "Are. Lady Stoat stared, then laughed. **T don’t know where they come, either of them, in our argu- ment, but if they had been married at sixteen it would have been a very good thing for both of them!’ You are a little girl now, my child, though you are nearly six feet high! You. are a dem- oiselleamarier. You can only wear pearls, and you are not even presented. You are noone; nothing. Society has hundreds like you. If you do not marry, people will fancy you are old whilst you are still twenty; people will say of you, ‘She is getting pas- see; she was out years and yearsago.’ They will say it even if you are handsomer than ever, and, what will be worse, you will begin to feel it.” Vere was silent, and Lady Stoat thought she had made some impression. ‘You will begin to feel it; then you will be glad to marry any- body, and there is nothing more terrible than that. You will take a younger son of a baronet, or a secretary of legation that is going to Hong-Kong or Chili—anything, anybody, to get out of yourself and not to see your own face in the ball-room mirrors. Now, if you marry early, and marry brilliantly—and this mar- riage is most brilliant—no such terrors will await you; you can wear diamonds—and oh, Vere! till you wear diamonds you do not know what life is—you can go where you like, as you like, _ your own mistress; you are posee; you have made yourself a power while your contemporaries are still debutantes in white frocks; you will have your children, and find all serious interests in them, if you like; you will have all that is best in life, in fact, and have it before you are twenty; you will be painted by Millais and clothed by Worth; you will be a politician if you like, or a fashionable beauty if you like, or only a great lady— perhaps the simplest and best thing of all; and you will be this, (E(0) com ic ,00KS