Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/77

66 high they stand in a traitor's guilty purples, those who have broken the oath of those secret bonds.

Then he laughed; a smile in which the last instinct of his better natura died.

"Faugh! my good Italians shall believe that I join the White Coats to serve Venetia: my blind Viennese shall think I wear a fair face to Italy to entrap her confidence for them. It is so easy to dupe both. And she—Naples will suffice for that. A whisper of mine to Monsignor Giulio, and scorn and wit, and statesmanship, and wealth, and all the cozenries of her loveliness, all the resources of her art, will avail her nothing. There, in the Vicaria, what will she do with her beauty, and her kingdom, and her lovers, and the insolence of her pride, then? Better have shared a crown with me!"

As his thoughts formed themselves into ruthless shape that dulled remorse, and stole swiftly and surely on the evil path which tempted him, the whole man in him changed: the gentleness of his nature grew into fierce lust, the unscrupulous subtlety of his intellect was merged into a deadly thirst for retaliation. On the woman who had scornfully repelled him he could have dealt a hundred deaths.