Moths by Ouida — page 90: what you’re looking at

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

&6 MOTHS. ‘You will pe here for the ball for the Prince Je Galles” said Princess Nelaguine to Lady Dolly, who nodded and laughed. ‘‘To be sure; thanks; I only go for a few days, love.” ** Are we coming back?” said Vere, aghast. ‘* Certainly,” said her mother, sharply, striking her ponies; and the child’s heart sank. ‘¢ But he will have had my letter,” she thought, ‘‘and then he will let me alone.” Le Caprice was a charming house, with a charming chatelaine, and charming people were gathered in it for the sea and the shooting; but Vere began to hate the pretty picturesque women, the sound of the laughter, the babble of society, the elegance and the luxury, and all the graceful nothings that make up the habits and pleasures of a grand house. She felt very lonely in it all, and when, for the sake of her beauty, men gathered about her, she seemed stupid because she was filled with a shy terror of them; perhaps they would want to marry her, too, she thought; eh her fair, low brow got a little frown on it that made her look sullen. “Your daughter is lovely, ma chere, but she is not sweets tempered like you,” said the hostess to Lady Dolly, who sighed. ‘*Ah, no!” she answered, ‘‘she is cross, poor pet, sometimes, and hard to please. Now, I am never out of temper, and any little thing amuses me that my friends are kind enough to do. I don’t know where Vere got her character; from some dead and _ gone Herbert, I suppose, who must have been very disagreeable in his generation.” : .And that night, and every night, she said the same thing to Vere: ‘‘ You must marry Sergius Zouroff;” and Vere every night replied, ‘‘I have told him I will not. J will not.” Lady Dolly never let her Know that her ietter had been urned. ‘¢ Your letter?” she had said, when Vere spoke of it. ‘‘No; he never told me anything of it. But, whatever you might say, he wouldn’t mind it, my dear. You take his fancy, and he means to marry you.” ‘‘' Then he is no gentleman,” said the girl. “Oh, about that, I don’t know,” said Lady Delly. ‘‘ Your idea of a gentleman, I believe, isa man who makes himself up as Faust or Romeo and screams for so many guineas a night. We won't discuss that.” Vere’s face burned, but she was mute. It seemed to her that her mother had grown coarse as well as cruel. There was a hardness in her mother that she had never felt before. That her letter should have been read by Sergius Zouroff, yet make no impression on him, seemed to her so dastardly that it left her no hope to move him; no hope anywhere except in her own re- sistance. Three days later, Prince Zouroff drove over to Le Caprice, and saw Lady Dolly alone, Were was not asked for, and was thankful. Her eyes wistfully (E(0) comicbooks