Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/175

164 came into play, and the love of power that was in her usurped its ancient sway.

Moreover here, though she scorned and abhorred many of the companions and tools that the cause necessitated and employed, the cause itself was a pure and lofty one; one for which her will could never slacken, her love never grow cold;—it was the freedom and the indivisibility of Italy. This was in the hearts, often on the lips, of all those to-night at Antina; amidst the music, the laughter, the wit, the balmy air breathed over a million flowers, the melodies of nightingales' tender throats, the flash of fire-flies among the groves of myrtle; and in the endless reception-chambers, with their jasper and their onyx, their malachite and their porphyry, stretching onward till the eye was lost in the colonnades of pillars, in the flood of light, in the sea of colour. It was a scene from the Italy of the Renaissance, from the Italy of the Cinque Cento, from the Italy of Goldoni, of Boccaccio, of Tullia d'Arragona, of Bembo, of Borgia;—but beneath it ran a vein of thought, a stream of revolution, a throb of daring that gave it also a memory of Dantesque grandeur, of Gracchan aspirations, of Julian force: "One Italy for the Italians!" vibrated through it; an echo, though a