Moths by Ouida — page 91: what you’re looking at

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

MOTHS. 87 questioned her mother’s-when they met, but Lady Dolly’s were unrevealing and did not meet her gaze. | The house was full of movement and of mirth; there were sau- veries every evening, and distractions of all kinds. Lady Dolly was always flirting, laughing, dancing, amusing herself; Vere was silent, grave, and cold. ** You are much younger than your daughter, Madame Dolly,” said an old admirer; and Lady Dolly ruffled those pretty curls which had cost her fifty francs a lock. ‘Ah! Youth is a thing of temperament more than of years. That Ido think. My Vere is so hard to please, and I—every: thing amuses me, and every one to me seems charming.” But this sunny, smiling little visage changed when, every evening before dinner, she came to her daughter’s room, and urged, and argued, and abused, and railed, and entreated, and sobbed, and said her sermon again, and again, and again; all in vain. Vere said but few words, but they were always of the same meaning. ‘*T will not marry Prince Zouroff,” she said always. ‘‘It ig of no use to ask me. I wiil not.” And the little frown deepened between her eyes, and the smile that Correze had seen upon her classic mouth now never came there. She grew harassed and anxious, Since her letter had made no impression on him, how could she escape this weariness? One evening she heard some people in the drawing-rooms talks ing of Correze. They said that he had been singing in ‘‘ Fidelio,” and surpass ing himself, and that a young and beautiful grand duchess had made herself conspicuous by her idolatry of him—so conspicu- ™ 4 y * - — ‘ : ¢ - - : ‘ | : : rt | eA 54 ; we Pte f 4 , J : : - ’ - , ‘ , - ee \ : ¥ ‘a os bie aly) nV Ky 3 ; J y "| : ous that he had been requested to leave Germany, and had ree | fused, placing the authorities in the difficult position of either receding ridiculously or being obliged to use illegal force: there would be terrible scandal in high places, but Correze was always accapareur des femmes! : Vere moved away with a beating heart and a burning cheek: through the murmur of the conversation around - her she seemed to hear the exquisite notes of that one divine voice which had dropped and deepened to so simple and tender a “Veto as it had bidden her keep herself unspotted from the world. ‘¢ What would he say if he knew what they want me to do?” she thought. ‘‘If he knew that: my mother even—my moth- — er—!’ For not even, though her mother was Lady Dolly, could Vere quite abandon the fancy that motherhood was a sweet and sacred altar, on which the young could seek shelter and safety from all evils and ills. ; The week at Le Caprice came to an end, and the four days at Abbaye aux Bois also, and, in the last hours of their two days at the Abbaye, Lady Dolly said to her daughter; comicbooks. co