Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/195

184 The lion-like eyes of Erceldoune literally blazed their fire into those that met them with unchanged serenity. There were volumes in the three words; all of distrust, disbelief, hatred, and scorn that his heart held for the one who had turned counsellor to him. Their sting pierced deep; but the wound of it was covered.

"My motive is this. A party with which I was to a great extent associated, yet from whose measures I very often dissented, implicated me by their extreme opinions in many courses that I utterly disapproved, and implicated my name still oftener unknown to me. I am entirely against all violence and all fraud—not from virtue—I do not affect virtue—but from common sense. Politically, much is permissible" "I am not inclined to hear your creed. I make no doubt that it is an elastic one! Your motive?"

"You pass it in your haste. I endeavour to explain it. I became entangled in earliest youth with men whose association has been the greatest injury of my career. I have never been able wholly to free myself from their influence, but I have long ceased to countenance their more unscrupulous intrigues—not from virtue, I distinctly say, from policy. It is a lack of sagacity that produces all crimes; nothing