Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/201

190 will form a companion picture if you trust to a basket of melons to pass you unnoticed through Naples." The words were quite cool, quite unstudied, with just enough of regret in their half-languid banter to keep them from being mockery. Phaulcon's fine frame shook passionately as he heard; under the olive dye his cheek grew ashen; he threw himself down and sobbed like a child, wept as if his heart would break, in uncontrolled emotion.

His friend stood looking at him some moments in silence with a certain impatient disdain. This Greek, handsome as an Apollo, cruel at times as a Nero, and stained deep with many a crime, was yet as a child in the sight of the more controlled and astute Englishman; a child in cowardice, in impulsiveness, in caprice, in tyranny, in emotion, with all a child's unguardedness, recklessness, mobility, and love of torture.

"Naturally, you regret!" he said, at last, very softly. "You have not even killed your goose with the golden eggs yourself, my poor Conrad, but see bird and gold both stolen at a blow! Very naturally, you regret!" The silken irony, the mockery of pity, stung Phaulcon like a shot. He started up, dashing the