Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/160

149 "Said you believed me rather! The Countess Vassalis was always famous for her finesses. Beyond a doubt she had the tact to assume a fitting ignorance of anything that might have compromised her." She looked him in the eyes till his own fell: she deigned no further answer.

"Idalia "—he began to plead more huskily and hurriedly.

"You have lost all title to call me by that name. Put land and sea between us henceforth for evermore. Never let me look upon your face again—never, never, never!" Her voice, losing its controlled coldness, broke from her with an irresistible intensity, while as her arm pointed outward to the waters, she banished him from every soil she touched, from every air she breathed. For one moment the force of the magnificent gesture, rather than of the words of banishment, thrilled, awed, and intimidated him; he fell back involuntarily a step or two upon the tawny sands.

"Go, go!" she said, still with that movement of her hands which thrust him from her with such command as that wherewith the Scandinavian priest thrust back with his golden crosier the bloodstained