Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/77

66 have the strength of Titans, to have lost every sense of existence save those of its deep delight, its wild joys, its dreamy ecstasy.

"My love, my love, forgive me," he murmured. "In the heaven you have brought me I forgot your danger."

"Was it not best forgot?" she asked, with that carelessness and that sadness which mingled intricately in her nature. "In a race for life and death, few would pause to speak as we have done; but it is the surest wisdom to defy fate while we can."

"Fate? There is no fate, save such as a strong hand carves, or a weak hand spoils, in Life." "Nay, am I not yours?"

She stooped to him with her oíd half-mocking sorcery, her loosened hair brushing bis breast, her rich lips near his own, her eyes, deep with thought, humid with tears, yet luminous with that victorious challenge which was without pity, and which had so often defíed men to have strength or power to deny her as their destiny. The oíd evil passed over her for a moment—the oíd evil of triumph in the unmerciful, unsparing knowledge that a human soul was hers to do with as she would, as a crown of roses lies in a child's wanton hands tq be treasured or trodden down at will.