Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida'.djvu/224

216 She laughed a little; slightly, carelessly. "What enthusiasm. So great a traveller cannot, surely, find anything so new and striking in a wild Turkish garden?" she said, half amusedly, half languidly, a little ironically, purposely misapprehending his words. The look came on him that had been there before, when she had bade him never to be the slave of a woman; proud, and yet wistful.

"I do not know that!" he said, almost bitterly: "but I know that the gardens may be as fatal as those of Uhland's Linden-tree. You remember how the poem begins?" The words took an undue effect on her; resentment came on her facce, inquiry into her eyes, that she turned full on him in some surprise, some anger, and yet more, as it seemed to him, disquiet. Then all these faded, and a profound sadness followed them.

"Yes, I remember," she said, calmly. "Take warning by Wolfdieterich, and do not lie under the linden! Rather, to speak more plainly, and less poetically, never come where you do not see where your footsteps will lead you. You know nothing of me, save my name; leave me without knowing more. It will be best, believe me—far best."