Page:Friendship - Ouida (1878) - vol. 1.djvu/340

328 'A fine long night, Excellence!' said the cabman, with a radiant smile, as Ioris paid him while the bells of the first mass rung in the dawn.

'A terrible long night,' thought his employer, looking up at the blue morning skies.

The cabman, who, had he ever been cross-questioned by Society, could have rendered the clerical cold lamb for ever a Passover of the past to the Casa Challoner, drove away joyous to get his breakfast and gamble in the sun. Ioris went upstairs and shut the sun out, and threw himself on his bed.

'Good God! once I thought this, pleasure!' he murmured as his heavy eyelids fell.

So he had thought this—love.