Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/100

89 Her life had been changeful, varied, spent in many countries, and conversant with many things; its memories were as numerous as the sands, but what was written on them was not to be effaced as it could be effaced on the shore. The reverse of Eugénie de Guerin, who was "always hoping to live, and never lived," she had lived only too much, only too vividly. She had had pleasure in it, power in it, triumph in it; but now the perfume and the effervescence of the wine were much evaporated, and there was bitterness in the cup, and a canker in the roses that had crowned its brim. Forshe was not free. Like the Palmyran queen she felt the fetters underneath the purples, and the jewelled links of gold she wore were symbols of captivity; moreover, conscience had wakened in her, and would not sleep. She rose at last; she knew many would visit her during the day, and she was, besides, no lover of idle dreams or futile regrets; brilliant as Aspasia, and classically cultured as Héloise, she was not a woman to let her hours drift on in inaction or in fruitless reverie; no days were long for her even now that she rebelled against the tenor and the purpose of her life.