Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/112

Rh The words were almost wild, but they were terribly true. Though perhaps the less likely thus to fall because he knew his own weakness, he felt that the inflexible justice, the honesty of purpose, the unerring loyalty to knightly creeds, which were so ingrained in him that they were scarce so much principle as instinct, might reel, and break, and be forgotten if once this woman whispered:—

"Sin—and sin for me!"

He thought he could deny her nothing—not even his sole heritage of honour—if she could bend to woo it from him. A look of pain passed for one moment over her face. She thought of him as he had lain in his extremity, while her hand had swept back the dark luxuriance of his hair, and his eyes had looked upward into hers without sense or sight. Was it possible that she had saved him then only to deal him worse hereafter? She shook the sea-drops from her hand with a certain imperious, impatient movement, and replied to him with the haughty negligence of her occasional manner.

"I asked you an impersonal question—no more; and if you cannot frame a sophism contentedly, you are terribly behind your age. We have rhetoric