Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/188

Rh through all his frame; he could not use violence to a man without the power to return it; he could not force to silence words which, if he refused to hear them, he would seem to know were true in all their shame. He dropt the pistol down on the sands between them, and crossed his arms on his chest.

"Say your worst. Our reckoning shall come later."

"Well, my worst is —the truth. You love this woman; but you are not in her confidence ; you never will be."

He saw a quiver of pain break the wrath on his listener's face, and he saw that the bolt had struck home.

"You believe everything she tells you? I never found the man who did not. I doubt if a man can look long at her, and see clearly, unless he have known her well, and come forewarned to her—as I came. Well, you have thought her a mistress for 'Shakspeare's self;' you have seen her in great dangers; you have imagined her foully wronged; you have cast away all your heart on her, and now are casting your life away after it. And you do all this without ever having asked yourself and the world what a woman must be who, titled, is yet out of society; who, young, yet recklessly defies all custom; who, rich,