Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/83

72 "That is not true," she said, bitterly. "Betrayal—in men's sense of betrayal of comrade to comrade, of friend to friend, of honour to honour—never yet did touch me. But I betrayed as women mostly do—all those who loved me."

He watched her wistfully, but silently; his heart ached that there should be this shadow of unrevealed remorse between them; his knowledge of her told him that Idalia was not a woman to let slight regrets weigh on her, or slight errors stir her conscience into pain; he knew that among the wild-olive crown of her genius and jer power some poisoned leaf of the belladonna must be wound, brilliant but life-destroying. It was acute suffering to him; she was to him as luminous, glorious, divine, and far above him as the sun itself; that across this sun of his life there should lie these black and marring shadows, gave bim pain deep as his love. But loyalty was with him before all; and beyond the reckless resolve of a blind passion, that would possess what it adored, though the possession should be accursed, there was the noble fealty he had sworn to her—the brave, patient, chivalrous trust which left unasked whatever she wished untold, and was contented to believe and wait.