Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/21

14 an immunity, first, because she was so very rich; secondly, because she had many male relations; thirdly, because women, whilst they envied, were afraid of her. Anyway, her name was altogether without reproach; the only defect to be found in her in the estimate of many of her adorers.

Married without any wish of her own being consulted, and left so soon afterwards mistress of herself and of very large wealth, she had remained altogether indifferent and insensible to all forms of love. Other women fell in love in all sorts of ways, feebly or forcibly, according to their natures, but she never.

The passions she excited broke against her serene contempt, like surf on a rocky shore. She was the despair of all the "tueurs de femmes" of Europe.

"Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien," she said to her brother once, when she had refused the hereditary Prince of Deutschland; "I can do exactly as I like; I have everything I want; I can follow all my own whims; I am perfectly happy; why ever should I alter all this?