Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/127

116 with so many masks that shrouded her beauty from him; the frank singleness of his nature was without key to the intricate complexity of hers. Had he seen her first and solely as she was to-night,—lying back in her chair, toying with her exotics glowing with rose and purple, touching the golden Lebanon wine or the luscious Lachryma, letting her eyes dwell with their lustrous languor now on one, now on another, and holding all those about her with a silver chain, surer than steel in its hold on them, ductile to her hand as silk,—he would have dreaded her power, he would have doubted her mercy, he would perhaps never have loved her.

Erceldoune listened to the words around him, but insensibly and uncertainly; bis thoughts were on her alone; but when they reached bis senses he heard the most advanced opinions of Europe, with the politics of the extreme Left, form the staple of all deeper discussion, and the basis of a thousand intricate intrigues and abortive projects that were circulated, often to be passed current with the seal of Idalia's approbation, much more often to be broken in two by some hint of later intelligence than theirs, or some satirically suggested comment languidly let fall by her on their excited warmth, like the fall of an icy spray. And yet there were