Moths by Ouida — page 172: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ABB TN MOTHS. - the knife of the vivisector tear and burn the sensitive nerves of the living organism that they mutilate. | He did not intend to hurt her; but it ssemed to him that her ignorance made her ridiculous. He pulled down the veils and mufflers in which the vices of society mask themselves, and was - amused to see her shrink from the nude deformity. His rough, bold temper had only one weakness in it: he had a nervous dread of being made to look absurd. He thought the in- nocence and coldness of Vere made him look so. ‘‘They will take me for a mari amoureux,” he thought; and. Madame de Sonnaz laughed, and told him the same thing fifty times a week. He began to grow impatient of his wife’s uncon- sciousness of all that went on around her, and enlightened her without scruple. He sat by her and laughed at Judic and at Theo, and was an- gry with her that she looked grave and did not laugh; he threw the last new sensation in realistic literature on to her table, and bade herread it, or she would look like a fool when others talked. When a royal prince praised her too warmly, and she resented it, he was annoyed with her. ‘‘ You do not know how to take the world,” he said, impatiently. ‘‘It is myself that you make ridiculous: I do not aspire to be thought the jealous husband of the theatres, running about with a candle and crying, Aux voleurs!” When she came to “know of the vices of certain great ladies who led the fashion and the world, she asked him if what was said were true. He laughed. ‘Quite true; anda great deal that is never said, and that is worse, is as true, too.” ‘‘And you wish me to know them? to be friends with them?” she asked, in her ignorance. | He swore a little, and gave her a contemptuous caress, as to &@ dog that is importuning. ‘‘Know them? Of course; you must always know them. They are the leaders of society. Whatistheir life to you or any- body? It is their husbands’ affair. You must be careful as to women’s position, but you need not trouble yourself about their character.” ‘‘'Then nothing that any one does, matters?” _ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘‘It depends on how the world takes it. You have a proverb in English about the man who may steal a horse and the man who must not look at the halter, The world is very capricious: it often ek nothing to the horse- stealer, it often pillories the person that looksat the halter. You are not in it to redress its caprices. All you need be careful about is to know the right persons.” fa‘*‘The people that may steal the horses?” said Vere, with the faint, fine smile that had no mirth in it and was too old for her years—the smile that alone had ever come on her lips since her marriage. **The people that may steal the horses,” said Zouroft, with & s ‘comicbooks (E(@)