Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/64

Rh Idalia do not betray you, and that she probably will not do, unless—unless" Victor paused a moment, and let his eyes drop on his companion. "He is a magnificent man to look at, and adores her in all good faith, which might have the charm of novelty," he added, in a musing whisper.

"Damnation! I would lay her dead at my feet if I thought"

Vane raised his hand in deprecation.

"Pray do not be so very excessive! That language was all very well in the middle ages; both you and Sir Fulke Erceldoune have dropped in on us by mistake, out of the Crusades. But your brilliant Idalia is not a woman to be murdered. In the first place, she is too beautiful; in the second, she is too notorious; in the third, a glance of her eyes would send any assassin back again unnerved and unstrung. No; you must neither kill him, nor kill her. The idea! What barbarism, and what blundering. It is only—excuse me—madmen who use force; is it not their own necks that pay the penalty?" "But do you mean that she has any sort of feeling for this accursed Scot?"

The other smiled.