Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/232

Rh silent disdain. Fluent, facile, a statesman and a churchman, a libertine and a courtier, he had for the moment no words; he was held in check by his own rebel prisoner.

She looked at him, and a slight smile of contempt passed over her face.

"Ah! I thought so," she said, calmly. "So your lambs were the wolves, holy father?" The Prince-Bishop changed colour ever so faintly, the sarcasm of the accent rather than of the words pierced his armour of omnipotence and self-love; he understood why men had dreaded the lash and the steel less than they had dreaded the lightest touch of this woman's scorn. But he was a powerful and accomplished personage, to whom defeat or opposition were heresies unknown; he recovered his momentary discomfiture, and came nearer to her, the warm after-glow on his stately stature and his handsome majestic form, while his lustrous eyes smiled gently.

"My daughter, it has grieved us sorely that you should have been so long in rebellion against the Anointed of God; and believe me, the harshness of coercion has only been resorted to in the last extremity, and with the deepest reluctance and regret."