Moths by Ouida — page 193: what you’re looking at

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

MOTHS. : 489 very well what I did; I was only a child; nowIdo know—f would do otherwise. But there is no going back. Iam your wife. Will you help me a little to do what is right? I try always——” AS San Her voice faltered slightly. Her husband’s mind came out from his thoughts of Casse-une- Croute and Duchesse Jeanne, and realized that she was asking him for sympathy. He stared, then felt a passing heat of sullen — shame, then thrust away the emotion and laughed. ‘* My dear,” he said, with the cynical candor that was rather brutality than sincerity, ‘‘ three years ago we both made a great mistake. Every one who marries says the same. But we must; make the best of it. Jama rich man and an indulgent one, and that must content you. You are a lovely woman, and a cold one, and that must content me. If you bear me living sons you will do all a wife wints to do, and if I pay your bills and allow you to amuse yourself in your own way I do not see that you can complain of me. The less we are alone, the less likely are we to quarrel. That is a conjugal maxim. And do not make me serious scenes of this sort. They tire me, and I have no wish to be rude to you. Will you not go to your room? You look fatigued.” Vere turned away, and went into the house. Her husband re- mained on the terrace, sending the smoke of his great cigar out on to the moonlit sea-scented air. ‘‘She grows sentimental,” he said to himself; ‘‘it is better stopped at once. Can she not be content with her chiffons and her jewels?” j The following day the Parisian contingent filled the chateau, and from morn till night the mirth and movement of a gay ss house-party spoiled for the mistress of Felicite its woodland — beauty and its sea-shore freshness. Never to escape from the world grew as wearisome, as ter- rible to Vere as the dust of the factory to the tired worker, as _ the roar of the city streets to the heart-sick seamstress. Never to escape from it, neverto be alone with the deep peace of nat- ure, with the meditations of great dead poets, with the charm of lonely and noble landscape—this seemed to her as sad and as ~ dreary as, to the women who surrounded her, it would have seemed to have been condemned to a year without lovers and rivals, to a solitude without excitement and intrigue and success. To have a moment alone was their terror; never to have a mo- ment alone was her torture. The difference of feeling made a gulf between her.and them that no equality of beauty and ac- complishment and position could bridge. There was no sym- athy possible between Vere and the pretty painted people of her world. Useless as butterflies; corroding as moths; untrue even to lovers and friends, because incapable of understanding any truth; caring only for physical comfort and mental intoxication; kissing like Judas, and denying in danger like Peter; tired of living, yet afraid of dying; believing, some in priests and some in physiologists, but none at all in virtue; sent to sleep by chlorodine and kept - c 3 ¥ A comicbooks ’ e hes Ais hah’ el ROR AN Mid