Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/126

Rh day was gone for the while from him, as it was gone from her.

He saw her now as she was in all the varied scenes of her dazzling and careless world. She took little heed of him, rarely addressed him, rarely looked at him; her silver wit, barbed and ironic, scathed all it touched; her delicate laughter rang its mocking chime at things human and divine; the diamonds on the rose hues and black laces of her costly dress glittered like the dews on a pomegranate. Her resistless coquetries enslaved whomever she would, and cast their golden net now on one and now on another; the heartlessness of a heartless code, the caprices of a world-wise imperious woman, used to be adored, and to tread the adoration at fancy beneath her foot, the recklessness of one accustomed to defy the world, and to stake great stakes on fortune, ruling her as utterly as a few hours before in the Grotto Azzuro high thoughts and noble regrets had reigned in her.

Which was truly herself of those characters so dissimilar? It would have been hard to tell. He would best have comprehended her who had judged—both. But to the man who loved her, let her be what she should, let her treat him as she would, the Protean changes in her tortured him as