Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/143

132 reply. Once again unseen by him as she leaned her brow upon her hand, there came upon her face the warmth, and in her eyes the look, with which she had gazed upon him in the previous night. It passed; she rose and stood again in the shadow of the myrtle-covered casement, looking from him out towards the sea.

"When will you be ready, then?" "I am so now. Your friends can row me on board when you will, and the yacht can weigh anchor with them at once."

"And you take no more thought than that of perilling your life for strangers?" "I have never taken much thought for my life that I can recollect. Besides, what need is there of thought? You wish it."

He spoke only in the singleness of his fidelity, in the earnestness of his devotion to her; but the most refined subtilty of art and purpose could not have taught him a better means to win his way towards the tenderness of Idalia's nature, and an infinite tenderness there was, let her lovers and her foes say what they would.

Her cheek lost the warmth it had regained, her face had the same sadness on it which it had worn as she had entered the chamber, the intense