Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/310

Rh or ostentation of wealth that had attraction for her; it was all the supremacy, the ease, the patronage, the habits, that great wealth alone makes possible; it was the reign which she had held throughout Europe; it was the charm of perfectly irresponsible power. To give up these and hear the cackle of all the fools she had eclipsed mocking at her weakness!—it would be beyond all endurance.

What was she to do?

The lax moralities of the women of her time were impossible to her proud and loftier character; and besides, she felt that a woman who preferred the world to him, would not find in Della Rocca a forgiving or a submissive lover. When he knew, what would he say?

She turned sick at the thought. After all, she had played with him and deceived him; he would have just cause of passionate reproach against her. His love had no wings, but it had a sword.

"Will Miladi be able to dine?" her maid asked her, vaguely alarmed at the strange stillness and the great paleness of her face.

"Was I to dine anywhere?" she said wearily