Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/210

Rh a wonderfuUy clever one too, and she will do what is expedient, and never die for a chimera."

He more than half believed what he said; he saw far into Idalia's character, but not far enough to fully gauge its depth. He had, moreover, a natural disbelief in the existence of any nature proof against a bribe, or capable of preferring a creed to a sovereignty. The Greek looked at him with fiery scorn.

"You think that? I tell you that, rather than play for one hour into the hands of King or Church, Idalia would suffer a hundred deaths. Her word is her bond, and treachery has no place with her; she will never buy liberty by a renegade's cowardice" "Sublimely virtuous, but—scarcely true, I fancy. Miladi is too world-wise to be an idealist."

He spoke carelessly: but such conscience as was in him, and all manliness that had not been polished away by the plane of sophism and of expediency, were pierced to the quick by the words that unwittingly stung him so closely.

"By the way," he went on carelessly, "I dare say that the Court, having snared her, would be willing to treat with you. What do you say, amico mio? You have not made a very good thing of Liberalism;