Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/140

129 Bourbons. Whatever he thought of creeds and causes, he loathed tyranny and oppression with all his heart and soul.

"Save them? Yes, if I lose my own life to do it."

She looked at him with a smile; how often she had seen that lion spirit, that eagle daring, lighten in temperaments the most diverse at her bidding!

"Ah! I thought your sympathies must always rise with liberty, and your hatred with oppression, or you would have belied your whole nature. I would make you 'with us' in an hour's reasoning." His eyes met hers with something pathetic in their wistful gaze—as though they besought her not to trifle with him. "You never need to reason with me. You have only to say, 'I will it'"

An absolute obedience this, an utter unquestioning submission, prostrate as any that ever laid Marc Antony at Cleopatra's mercy, or Héloise at Abélard's; yet he did not lose his dignity in it; it was lofty even while it was subject. It touched her, yet it pained her; it brought home to her the intensity and truth of this man's devotion; she would not, or could not, return it or repay it; she had no right, she bethought her, with a pang, to use it as she