Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/269

258 a subtle tempting coiled around him; the perfection of her earthly beauty might be his, though it were but the love of tbe wanton wherewith she loved him; the taint on her soul could not steal the fragrance from her lips, the voluptuous light from her eyes, the mortal glory from her loveliness. The baser passions of his soul longed for her, though every evil that swells the sum of human crime had place in her—though through her should come to him sin, and desolation, and dishonour. Yet—he was not theír slave; the greatness of his nature rose above them, and trampled out their tempting. He put her from his arms lest his strength should fail him, thrust her back from him so that her breath should be no more against his cheek, her heart throb no more on his own.

"Love that is faithless and shameful? What is that to me? If you have wronged my vilest foe, the woman I loved is dead."

Where she stood before him she bowed her head, as beneath words that had the weight of a righteous law! For this—that he rose higher than his passions' tempting, that he strangled the assailants of his senses, that infidelity to his enemy would have been as dark in his sight as infidelity to himself—she honoured him with a great reverence.