Moths by Ouida — page 358: what you’re looking at

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

354 MOTHS. her sharp keen eyes. ‘‘So much, so much!—and it will pass her patience. She is young; she does not know thata woman must never resist. A woman should only—deccive. It is Jeanne’s work, all her work; she has separated them; I knew well that she would. Oh, the fool that he is!—the fool and the brute! If I, and Jeanne, and Lady Dorothy, and all the women that are like us, were eaten by dogs like Jezebel, the world would only be the better and the cleaner. But Vera, my lily, my pearl, my saint!——” _---_e_—«_—_— - - CHAPTER XXVIII. Py Poland the slow, cold spring was leaden-footed and gray of hue. | In the desolate plains that stretched around Szarisla the country slowly grew green with the verdure of budding corn, and the yellow river outspread its banks, turbulent and swollen with the melted snows. She knew what it was to be alive, yet not to live. If it-+had not been for the long gallops over the plains through the cold air which she forced herself to take for hours every day, she would scarcely have known she was even alive. Little by little, as time went on and the household found that she remained there, and that her husband never visited her, the impression gained on all the people that she had been sent there either as captive or as mad; and a certain fear crept into them, and a certain dislike to be alone with her, and timidity, when she spoke, came upon them. She saw that shrinking from her, and understood what their fancy about her was. It did not matter, she thought; only it hurt her when the little children began to grow afraid, too, and flee from her. : ‘‘T suppose I am mad,” she thought, with a weary smile. **The world would say so, too: I ought to go back to it and kiss Jeanne de Sonnaz on both cheeks.” But to do so never occurred to her for one moment as any temptation, } She was made to break, perhaps, but never to bend. One day, in the misty spring weather, which seemed to her more trying than all the ice and snow of winter, there came over the plains, now bright with springing grasses or growing grain, a roik, with hired horses, that was pulled up before the iron-bound doors of Szarisla. From it there descended a very lovely woman, with an imper- | tinent, delicate profile, radiant, audacious eyes, and a look that had the challenge of the stag with the malice of the marmoset. When the servants on guard opposed her entrance with the habitual formula, ‘*‘ The prince forbids it,” she thrust into their faces a card signe l by Sergius Zouroff. ne the card was written, ‘‘ Admit to Szarisla the Duchess of ull.’ The servants bowed to the ground, and ushered the bearer of that irresistible order into the presence of their mistress without preparation or permission, 7 4 wine ‘comicbooks.co