Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/174

Rh those who have been once launched on a career which bears them now in the sunlight, now in the storm-shadow, now high on laughing waves of pleasure, now low sunk down under black bitter waters, varying ever, yet ever full of a tempestuous delight, of a headlong risk, of an abundant luxuriant glow and intensity of life, will ever willingly return to the dull flow of tideless and unchequered streams. They may in moments of exhaustion fancy that they would willingly take the patience and the monotony of serene unnoted lives—human nature will ever at times, be it in king or peasant, turn from what it has to sigh for what it has not;—but it is only a fancy, and a passing one; they would never for a second make it a reality.

Thus it was with Idalia now; remorse haunted her, captivity in a sense galled her with terrible fetters, often she hated herself and hated those around her; yet once in the vortex of the intrigues and the ambitions which had so long possessed her, she forgot all else. Thus she forgot all save them here at the Antina masquerade. It was not that she was changed, it was not that her other impulses were not vitally and deeply true; it was simply that the dominant side of her character now