Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/64

 and she was a fast and a good one; but I would not go,'

'A sailor is seldom to be trusted in such invitations,' said Sanctis, with some irritation. 'He makes them in most ports. What I offer you, my poor child, is very different; you should go to good women, to-peace and safety and comfort, to knowledge and light and the grace of life. You are as beautiful as a young goddess, but you are as wild and untamed as a kestrel. What I want to do is what Joconda would have wished to have done for you. My dear, is it possible you mistrust me?'

'I neither trust nor mistrust you,' said Musa, a little angrily. 'I do not think about it, because I do not want anything that you offer me. I shall not leave Maremma.'

Sanctis was silent and baffled. He had no means by which to control or coerce, and it began to seem impossible to persuade her.

The northern mind was in him, all artist though he was; order, security, education, protection, seemed to him the very breath of life to any female creature; the liberty, the loneliness, the indifference to