Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/55

44 upon earth, save that this woman he worshipped was bis in all her splendid grace, in all her sovereign loveliness; the world reeled round him—he felt blind, and drunk, and mad. And Idalia for the instant made him no resistance, but let her beauty lie in the arms that so well had shielded it, and let her head rest upon the breast that had been as a buckler rained on by a thousand blows between her and her enemies.

This trance of sweet forgetfulness, this momentary banishment of every bitter thing, she at least could give him, and he had earned his right to it. For the moment, also, she too shared it. She felt nothing but the softness, the silence, the voluptuous abandonment of the emotion so long contemptuously discredited and unswervingly repressed as owning any power to sway or move her heart.

Then slowly, and with her old reluctance to yield to so much weaknesé blent with a deeper and a keener pain, she drew herself gently from him.

"Do not thank me for my love. The world will tell you it is worthless, and can have no strength save to destroy."

For all answer he sank down at her feet, his arms about her still, his hands on hers, his eyes looking