Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/157

146 much dross amidst the little gold, there are such coward villanies masked under freedom's name. I, too, 'noblest amongst women!'—O God, sometimes I think myself the vilest."

He sighed; he knew her meaning; the grand pure heart of the old patriot would not take on itself the falsehood of flattering disguise.

"You are noblest in much," he said, softly; "something too pitiless, something too alluring, it may be, to the many who love you; but your errors are the errors of others, your nobility is your own." She shook her head.

"Gentle sophisms and full of charity, but not true. My errors are my own, woven close in my nature and my mind; such nobility as you speak of—if I can claim it—comes rather from the recklessness of courage, the passion for liberty, the hatred of tyranny, than anything better in me. But I am not here to speak of myself; there is not an instant to be lost: wake Cesario, poor child, and then leave me. We are too used to life and partings to feel this sudden or strange; but, my dear friend, my honoured friend, peace be with you, if we never meet again."

She held out both her hands to him with a look on her face that her lovers had never seen there, so