Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/37

26 But as for thrones! I thought we called ourselves Liberalists and Redressers? Crowns scarcely hang in the air like roses, as you seem to think, for any passer-by to gather them; but if they do, how do you reconcile the desire for one with all your professions of political faith? I suppose, then, like most democrats, you only struggle against tyranny that you may have the right in tum to create yourself Tyrannis?"

His hands closed on a cluster of rhododendrons in the window, and tore them down with an unconscious gesture. In a measure he was wronged; he loved her enough in that moment to have renounced every ambition and every social success for her, and he could not make her even believe that any feeling was in him. In a measure, too, her satire was right, and pierced him the more bitterly because it laid bare so mercilessly all that was confused and unacknowledged to himself. In his pain in her contempt, he hated her almost as much as he loved her, and the old barbaric leaven of jealousy, that he had used to ridicule as the last insanity of fools, broke out despite all self-respect that would have crushed it into silence.

"You are very pitiless, madame!" he said in his teeth. "Do you deal as mockingly with that