Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/123

112 temperament, she looked down on him with a smile ín which all her most seductive sweetness gleamed as the gold rays of the southern day flashed in the dark lustrous langour of her regard.

"Anima mía," she murmured, caressingly, "we will believe so, at least while we can, even—even if you should live to curse me, and I should live for Monsignore Villaflor's vengeance! Let us dream of a Future, then. I have so long thought of the world's future only, and so long not dared to give a glance at my own. Let us dream while we can. Tell me of your old Border castle. We will raise it from its ashes once more if you will. And you shall come and be lord of my great Koumelian fief, all its hills and its plains, and its rívers, and its vast solitudes with their terrible beauty, and its fortress that is a palace, like some Persian vision of the night that we see when we have fallen asleep in reading Firdusi. Ah! there is a life there possible, if we could but reach it—a life fit for your bold chieftainship, a life that might redeem my past. We both know the world to weariness. There, eastward, you and I—we might find something at least of the oíd ideals of my early fancies; there are a people sunk in sloth and barbarism, there are the domains of a prince, there are grand woods and waters, and mountains to