Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/110

Rh contrítion of self-accusing memoríes, of heart-sick confession.

"But do not honour me for that. It made my críme, I think, the deeper. Those senseless women, whom I have so often contemned, with all the contempt that was in me, for their maudlin romance, their emotional sentiment, which make them see a god in every common-place mortal, and give them idols as many as the roses in summer, are, after all, perhaps, truer and better—fools though they be—than I. Their emotions, at least, are real, however fleeting, vain, and shallow. But I—leave me when you know it, if you will, but know it you shall—never felt one faintest touch of tenderness for any one of those who loved me, yet I was merciless enough, sinful enough, shameful enough, if you will, never to let one amongst them know that, until he was deep enough in my toils to have no power to loose himself from them. I let them hope, I let them believe, I let them think their reward sure until such time as they were mine—courage and honour and body and soul all mine—to use as I would, for the ends and in the cause of my ambitions. I let them think I loved them, and then I used their minds or their hands, their names or their strength, whichever I needed to take; and I never asked once,