Moths by Ouida — page 323: what you’re looking at

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

uMOrHs’ 819 vhe doubt that her husband spoke of her with Jeanne de Sonnaz, ep nes at them both quickly and haughtily, then said, very clearly: : ‘If Monsieur Zouroff know anything that he desires me to pardon, he can speak for himself, without an ambassadress, and without a listener. I came to ask you to allow Bertheand Claire to come out with me on the sea.” ‘* How good you are to those children! but you will inoculate them with your own sea-frenzy,” answered the duchess, with 2 little laugh. ‘‘ Of course they may go.” | Zouroft had already gone from the room, angry with his frie. ~, more angry with his wife. Madame Jeanne rose a ‘ittle impetu- ously, dragging to the ground the artistic embroideries of the shield she was working. ‘* Vera,” she said, with candor in her voice and honesty in her regard, ‘‘do not be angry. lam so old a friend of Sergius—he has told me how he tore off your locket and destroyed it. I am SO SOITy, SO very sorry; so is he. But, alas! men are always the same; they are all brutes, we know, and, Vera, he is very jealous of your singer.” Vere’s face grew very stern. ; ‘‘ Has he commanded you to speak to me on his behalf?” ‘‘No, my dear, not that, he would scarcely do that in plain words. ButIam an old friend, andlam sorry. Of course it is too absurd, but he is very jealous. Be careful; men of his race have done mad and cruel things in their time. Do not provoke him. Do not see Correze.” ‘¢ You mean well, madame,” said Vere, in tones of ice. ‘‘ But you err in taste and wisdom, and I think your zeal outstrips your orders. I scarcely think even my husband can have charged you with his threats to me.” ‘‘Threats? who spoke of threats? A warning——” ‘A warning, then, but none the less an insult. You are in my house, so I can say nothing. "Were I in yours, I would leave it. Your children are waiting in impatience; excuse me.” Madame Jeanne looked after her as she went t..2ough the glass doors on to the sea-terrace, where the pretty little figures of Berthe and Claire were dancing to and fro in the sunlight. Madame Jeanne drew her tapestry-frame toward her, and proceded to fill in the lilies of Saint Cunegonde. She smiled as she bent her head over the frame. 3 ‘<Tf I have ever known my sex,” she thought—‘‘if I have ever known my sex, a word will go over the North Sea, and Correze will come from his Norwegian summer to a Norman one, and then—and then—there will be droll things to see. It is like watching the curtain rise in the Ambigu—there is sure to be melodrama.” | Melodrama amused her—amused her more than comedy. She had no belief in quiet passion or quiet grief herself, any more than she had in quiet principles. Vere went out to sea with the little children, and in the mellow gunshine and the sweet orchard-scented air her face was dark ‘comicbooks / co