Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/74

Rh "If I do, I have no knowledge of it A bruise!—a hatchet-stroke! Do you think I could remember those?" "I do, at least. They were enough to stretch you as one dead but very lately"

"A passing faíntness, nothing more. Believe me, a thousand wounds like these would never harm me. I have been half a soldier all my days." "So have I." And as she spoke she rent off some of the delicate white laces of her masque dress, and steeped them in the little spring that bubbled under the oak stems till they were cool and soft as lint, and tore asunder a broad strip of the scarlet silk of her Venetian domino and laid the wet laces on it.

"Stoop down," she said to him—a singular softness, so gentle that in itself it was a caress, had come upon her.

He stooped to her as she bade him, but his hands drew the gold-broidered ribbons away.

"Not so. You shall not serve me."

"Why not? You have earned your right to service, if man ever earned it."

The breath of her lips was on his brow, her eyes looked into his with the dew of unshed tears glistening heavily in them, her hands touched him, making