Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/218

Rh voice unconsciously softened with an infinite pathos and yearning. That involuntary thrill of longing tenderness steeled him in an instant to the first eager impulse of acceptance, prompted by his lust for wealth and ease and power, and all the half-barbaric voluptuous royalties of the Roumelian palace, that had seethed in him for so long. Other evil instincts were more potent still than avarice. He smiled—a slow and cruel smile.

"Magnificent ransom for a landless courier. But at what price will not your sex gratify its capríces—especially the caprices of the passions? For myself, the bribe is high; but I decline it."

The blood faded from her face, even from her lips; a grey, heavy shadow, as of desperation, fell over her, that seemed to drain the very colour from her eyes and from her form, and leave her, white and chill there, as a statue.

"What will you gain?"—she spoke with a hard, brief, stony tranquillity.

"Why—a romantic thing to be sure, and an unremunerative; yet the sweetest thing, as men find, that the world holds—vengeance."

"Neither he nor I have wronged you."

"Maybe. But both have galled me; both"