Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/114

Rh realise, of all you fancy fairest or noblest, this only—Non Angelus"

He looked at her wistfully still; the temper of the man had too much directness, too much singleness, to be able to divine the veiled meanings of her varying words, the seductive changes of her altered tones: he only knew that he felt for her what he had felt for no other woman.

"Non Angelus?" he repeated. "Well!—might I not also be answered with its companion line, 'Homo es, non es Deus?' I am no sophist; you have reproached me with it. Sophism is to me the shameful refuge of cowards who dare not own themselves criminals; but—but—even while I condemned what I loved, my love would not change; though she erred, I would not forsake her. 'Non Angelus?' What knell to love is there there? It is but to admit a common bond of weakness and mortality."

His voice was low and unsteady as he spoke, but it had a great sweetness in it; the love he was forbidden to declare for her he uttered to her in them.

She stooped and leant her hand over the side again, toying with the coolness of the water. His words had touched her keenly, and their loyalty