Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/162

Rh charm their sight and their senses, because they are fools, and I know how to make them madmen! So that a woman were lovely, they would care not how vile she might be! But he—he has the old knightly faith, the old gallant honour; he gives his heart with his passion; he must revere what he adores. He has seen me as I am to-night; the pain was deadly to him; yet, if it rend me out of his memory, he may live to be grateful for it."

The warmth of the chamber seemed stifling to her, the perfumed oil of the lamp oppressive; the room itself, with its hangings, its cabinets, its decorations, its countless bagatelles of art and wealth, of extravagance and of effeminacy, struck. on her loathsomely.

"Ah! how like my life!" she thought, with an impetuous scorn. "The pure day is shut out, and all that is heated, unreal, luxurious, meretricious, worthless, is chosen instead! A diamond-studded, gas-lit, dangerous lie, instead of the sunlight of truth!"

She pushed the heavy folds of a curtain back, and opened the casement beyond it; as the villa overhung the sea, so the window jutting out overhung the rock, and gave to view in one grand sweep the whole bow of the bay, with the white mists of