Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/331

 out on her all the supplication, all the entreaty, all the persuasion, that he was master of; he lavished every amorous endearment that his language held; he painted the joys of great and mutual passion with a fervour and a force that shook her like a whirlwind; he upbraided her with her caprices, with her coldness, with her selfishness, till the words cut her like sharp stripes: he besought her by the love with which he loved her till the voluptuous sweetness of it stole over all her senses, and held her silent and enthralled.

He knelt at her feet, and held her hands in his.

"Does your life content you?" he said at the last. "Can greatness of any sort content a woman without love? Can any eminence, or power, or possession make her happiness without love? Say that I am poor; that coming to me you would come to what in your sight were poverty; is wealth so great a thing measured against the measureless strength of passion? Are not the real joys of our lives things unpurchaseable? Oh, my love, my love! If you had no preference for me I were the vainest fool to urge you; but,