Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/209

198 The venomous words were murmured to the solitary shore; even thus, and alone, it was a cruel solace to him to taunt her with those sneers, to soil what he had lost for ever, to libel what he envied. It could not harm her thus to slander her, where none made answer, but he felt a relief in it, a joy kindred to that with which he had sold her into the hands of Giulio Villaflor.

Moreover, he believed what he said; partially because his suffering made him cling to whatsoever could lessen it; partially because the character of Idalia had escaped him in many of its hues, keen and varied as were the worldly experiences by whose light he had first set himself to read it. He had known of her through a thousand tongues ere ever he had looked upon her face; the poison-mists breathed from their distortions had never wholly faded from before her in his sight. Such a woman needs a mind singularly truthful and singularly liberal to understand her aright. Truth he had not in him, and to all talent save his own he was illiberal; thus he had failed in following the complex meanings of her life and of her thoughts. He had uttered but what he held himself when he had said that

beautiful she is, The serpent's voice less subtle than her kiss,