Moths by Ouida — page 280: what you’re looking at

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

DIG MOTHS. ‘¢ The singer?” ‘*M. de Correze.” f ‘<Well, there is only one; you mean the singer? How came he near you?” ‘*T do not know.” s¢ And what did he do?” ‘¢ He saved my life.” Sergius Zouroff Jooked wearied. ‘*You are always 80 emotional, ma chere. Do you mean he did anything I ought te acknowledge? Where is he to be found?” ‘7 do not know.” ‘‘Oh, I can hear at the Cercle. But are you not talking in hyperboles?” *‘T told you the fact. I thought you ought to know it.” “Ah, yes,’ said her husband, who was thinking ef other things. ‘‘ But he did not come to sing at Svir. I cannot forgive that. However, I will send my card, and then you can ask him to dinner. Or send him a diamond ring: artists always like rings,” Vere turned away. : ‘‘T remember hearing once,” said Lady Dorothy, approaching him, ‘‘that Correze had one thousand three hundred and seventy- six diamond rings, all given him by an adoring universe. You - goust think of something more original, Sergius.” _ Ask him to dinner,” said Prince Zouroff. ‘* People do; though it.is very absurd.” Then he went to the card-room for ecarte, thinking no more of his wife than he thought of his dead horse. ‘“ Correze and the sea seem quite inseparable—quite like Leans- der,” said Lady Dolly, who had heard the whole story before dinner from her maid, when she too had returned from Monte Carlo. But she said it half under her breath, and did not dare speak of it to her daughter; she was haunted by the memory of that letter she had received from Moscow, the letter of Correze that she had burned and left unanswered. ‘It is odd that he should have been in that canoe just to-day, when we were all away,’ she thought, with the penetration of a woman who knew her world, and did not believe in accidents, as she had once said to her child. ‘* And to say she does not know where he is—that is really too ridiculous. Iam quite sure Vere never will do anything—anything—to make people talk, but I should not be in the least surprised if she were to insist on some-= thing obstinate and romantic about this man. She is so very emotional. Zouroff is right, she is always in the clouds. That comes of being brought up on those moors by that German, and Correze is precisely the person to answer these fancies; even in daylight at a concert he is so handsome, and even in dinner-dress he always looks like Romeo. It would really be too funny if she ever did get talked about—-so cold, and so reserved, and so quite goo dreadfully and awfully good as she is!” . And Lady Dolly looked down the drawing-rooms at her daughter in the distance. as Vere drew her whate robes slowly - re « — = 7 * FE ) 7 ° * an . ya Te =. ” —-. i “a aN as “ comicbooks.co - f ‘a 4 » > — tet ‘ a ; of