Moths by Ouida — page 247: what you’re looking at

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

MOTHS. 243 is?” ‘‘Excuse me, madame,” said the old man, with another low bow. ‘To explain the choice of Paris is always a most painful dilemma; the goddesses are all so admirable——” ‘‘No phrases. You are old enough to tell me the truth; or, if you like, I will tell it to you.” ‘I should certainly prefer that.” “Weli——” ‘* Well?” “I will tell you, then, in her own husband’s words: elle ne sait pas s’encannailler.” And the duchess, with a cigarette in her mouth, laughed, and carried her cardinal red skirts, and her musical silver heels, over the stones of Aussee to a raft on the river, which the skill of her attendants had turned into a very pretty, awning-shaded, flower- type of mankind, I assure you. ‘Will you tell me, pray, why it decked barge, where their breakfast was spread in the soft gray air above the green water. Such women as Duchesse Jeanne or Lady Dolly are never in ie country; they take Paris and London with them wherever they go. : The old diplomatist sat silent through the gay and clamorous breakfast, looking often at Vere, beside whose plate lay the Alpine roses, and in whose ruffled lace at her throat was the blue Wolfinia. ‘Good God! what an age we live in!” he thought—*“ in which a husband makes it a reproach to his wife that she does not un- derstand how to attract other men! I do believe that we have sunk lower than the Romans of the empire: they did draw a line between the wife and the concubine. We don’t draw any. Perhaps, after all, the Nihilists are right, and we deserve cutting down, root and branch, in our corruption. The disease wants the ' knife.” He muttered something of his thoughts to his next neighbor, the young Prince Trafoi. The young man nodded, smiled and answered, ‘* Duchesse Jeanne is quite right. Princess Vera is as beautiful as a Titian; but one gets tired looking at a Titian that one knows will never come into the market. Orrather she is likea classic statue In one of the old patrician museums in Rome. You know nothing will ever get the statue into your collection; you admire and pass. The other day, at the Hotel Drouot, there was a tobacco-pot in Karl Theodor porcelain, that was disputed by half Europe, and went at a fabulous price: the woman we like resembles that tobaeco-pot; it is exquisite, but it can be got at, and anybody’s hand may go into it; and even in its eat Rae Karl Theodor 4s SO beautiful—it is suggestive and redo ure. ! ‘‘ All that is very well,” said Lord Bangor; ‘‘ but, though it may explain the modern version of Paris’s choice, it does not explain why in marriage——” ‘‘ Yes, it does,” said the younger man. ‘‘The Roman noble does not care a straw for the statues that ennoble his vestibule: ent of a coarse pleas- (E(@) AA G 900 SS) EO