Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/128

Rh moments when she was not thus, when she was more seductive in her eloquent expositions, her sudden and then impassioned earnestness, than in her nonchalance; moments when she spoke low, swiftly, brilliantly, with a picturesque oratory, persuasive, vivid, irresistible, till her guests' bold eyes glowed with admiration as they listened, and they were ready to lend themselves to her hands, to be moulded like wax at her will, without a will of their own. Then, as often, when she had roused them or wooed them to the height of the enthusiasm, the rashness, or the sacrifice she had sought to win from them, she dropped the topic as suddenly, with a languid indifference or a sarcastic jest, sinking back among her cushions, playing half wearily with the scarlet blossoms of her bouquet or the velvet ears of the hound, with hardly a sign that she remembered the presence of her numerous comrades.

Varied and glittering though the conversation that went on round him was, infectious and free as its gaiety of tone was also, marked as might seem her confidence in him to introduce him there, and intoxicating to every sense as the entertainment to which she had brought him might be, Erceldoune was wretched in it; he could comprehend nothing; he was jealous of every man at her table; everything