Amélie Rives

“ The birds were at their morning gossiping in the shrubbery, and the air was most sweet with the breath of the white lilacs. My lady looked like a snow-wreath fallen suddenly among the greenery of spring, but her eyes did peep softly, like bluebells, from the snows of her face. Methought she was all white and blue, like the heavens above her, and her hair made sunshine over all. Herne, the blood-hound, lay at her feet, and would not be stirred, though for sport my lady had Marian to tempt him with some comfits. ”

“ And she knew not how she left the hall, nor when,—nor when or how Mervais got him from her presence, for the dread of those words was upon her, and the great rubis stone, carved like a rose, that lay hidden in her breast, bit deep through bone and flesh into the heart within her heart, like as it had been the rose of pure desire, in the King's garden in the lay. ”

“ There was an expression of supreme peace on his quiet face. "The peace that passeth all understanding" flashed through Sophy's mind. She shivered. This peace of Cecil's and that other divine peace were so cruelly removed one from the other. Yet this, too, was "past understanding" for all outside the black magic of its influence. The lamp turned the window-pane near which he sat into a dusky mirror. In its surface she saw repeated the sinister quiet of his profile, and through this reflection of his face dimly she saw the further landscape. ”

“ As Bonnibel felt the strange touch upon her mouth she wheeled, rearing a little, and the girl’s soft hat was shaken from her head. Roden wondered if he had ever seen anything prettier than the sunlight on the young Virginian’s sun-like curls, and the glossy hide of Bonnibel.
The mare was going quieter now, mincing along and picking up her feet after a fashion much in vogue among equine coquettes. She was beginning to like the feel of the light, firm hands, and to be sensible of the masterly pressure of the strong young knees upon her mighty shoulders. ”

“ But when she did look up, and he saw her face as white as morning, and her hair as black as night, and her tall figure like to a young elm-tree—ay, when she looked up, ne'er saw I a man not dead seem so like death. He drops down his arms from about them, as though smitten from behind by a sword, and he staggers and leans against th' table, and lets fall his head upon his breast, staring straight in front o' him. ”

“ Supreme beauty, like supreme love, is never ridiculous. The gods wept over Icarus tumbling from his sire's chariot in mid-heaven. They would have tittered had it been lame Vulcan sprawling after his whirling hammer through the gulfs of ether. In the few seconds that Sophy stood transfixed, gazing down into that exalted young face, she understood how the legend of the moon's white stoop to Endymion had been invented. Not imagination so much as material beauty had been the source of the Greek myths. The artist and the poet in her ranged themselves on Loring's side. ”

“ They pulled Virginia out, with such gentleness as they could spare to the encroaching flames, and a bed was instantly made for her on the damp turf by means of the men’s hastily torn-off coats. She lay there, still, white, most beautiful, with peace at last upon her tired face. Did she dream, perchance, that he forgave her?
Ah! but the horror that followed—the crash succeeding crash, the hideous rioting of the vengeful flames about the poor brutes within. Some were suffocated, some jammed to death beneath the continually falling masses of stone and brick. ”

“ It was towards the setting of the sun when Sir John and Lord Denbeigh rode up to the door of Amhurste, and my lady, knowing naught, came out at the sound of the horses' feet, thinking only to greet her uncle. The red light from the west shone on her, and dabbled her white kirtle as with blood, and her face was like one of the red roses in her garden. So she put up her hand to shield it, and saw the stranger standing at her feet.
There was ne'er a nobler-looking man, for all he might outblack Satan in his soul: straight of body, and strong of limb, and lofty of head. ”

“ I have no disciple who really believes in me. Yet I am wonderfully vile. Virtue seems like a pale, pock marked wench to me. I feel like crying out on her like old Capulet: 'Out, you tallow-face! You baggage!' But Sin, with the clear black flames curled about her naked feet like the petals of a lotus—Sin, with her delicate, acrid lips that never satiate and are never satiated—her I worship! her I serve!—Do you believe me?"
Sophy sat gazing at him. ”

“ I am but mortal, and thou seemest to me more than mortal, and I would kiss thee once, and yet must I do the thing that is right."
"Oh, Alizonde!" cried he, "in the garden of the King thou shalt lie upon my heart and I will kiss thee with the kiss of love, and set the rose of pure desire in thy breast. Mortal with thy mortality am I, and immortal with thy immortality. And I would fain kiss thee, too, Alizonde!"
Presently the Queen said:
"This is a sweet pain. I am glad to bear it. Hast thou also pain, and is it sweet to thee?"
"Great is my pain," said Mervais, "and glad am I to bear it." ”

“ The sunlight through the swaying tendrils of a wild grape-vine overhead sent dim but sharply defined shadows wavering back and forth over its bright surface, as though, being spiritualized, they breathed with a new life. A corn-crake, moving cautiously among the withered water-grasses, thrust forward its gay crest and peered inquisitively at them, whereupon the collie cleared the brook with an arching bound, and set forth in mad pursuit of this new quarry. The crake at once rose into the blue lift, with the harsh, derisive cry from which it takes its name. ”

“ When Lady Patience waxed wroth, her cheeks burned like two coals, and thou couldst hear her little teeth grinding together, like pebbles squeezed i' th' palm o' thy hand; but when Mistress Marian was an-angered, the blood rushed back to her heart, and she was whiter than a lamb at the shearing, and her lips like white threads. Then would the light shoot and spin in her eyes, and her nostrils suck in and out, like those of a fretful horse. And she was fierce after the manner of a man rather than of a maid. ”

“ Miss Pickett could not follow the subtleties of Sophy's musing, she could only feel the pain that underlay it. She said gently:
"You mustn't deny love, honey, just because it's failed you. I don't ever want to see my child grow bitter."
"It's only one kind of love that I'm denying, Sue—not Eros, but Anteros ... the false god.... He comes in a lovely glamour. He's the rainbow on the foam of breaking waves. When the sea is still he vanishes. My bitterness is only against myself—for having worshipped a false god." ”

“ Green marsh lands spread in gentle melancholy beneath. Suddenly two orange sails in sunlight unfurled their burning petals against the green. And these great, burning sail-petals, drifting slowly along hidden waterways across the sad, green reaches, lent a thrill as of the passionate mystery of the sea to the tranquil inland.
There was more pain than joy for Sophy in this beauty. One should first see Venice with first love in one's heart, not third love, she told herself bitterly. And she was glad that she had written Amaldi not to meet her. ”

“ It is only fair. I am going to Italy with Bobby. Nothing can change me—nothing that you, or any one else, can say. Nothing—nothing!"
Lady Wychcote received this with bitter silence; then she said in a low voice of the most concentrated resentment:
"So you propose to leave the burden of your wifely duty on my shoulders?"
"No!" cried Sophy passionately. "As things are now, I have no wifely duty! The only duty left me is my duty to my son and to myself! I have no husband! And while this vile habit lasts, you have no son! He loves only morphia. Morphia is wife and mother and child and God to him. ”

“ Reaction is a terrible exaggerater. Under its influence Sophy saw herself as a wretched puppet sewn together of rags of sentiment. If at the first she had been courageous, if she had said to him fearlessly: "Either things must be different or we must part," how much better it would have been than this long-suffering condonement of what she despised!
What was it in her nature, what hidden spring that had led her to act Griselda to two such men as Chesney and Loring? She knew herself fundamentally imperious, impulsive, not to be commandeered. ”

“ Her life with Morris Loring was as past as though they had lived it in another age, on another planet. She knew that she would be inflexible. Her mood might soften, pity might rise murmuring. She, herself—her very self of self—would never change—could not change indeed. It was her inmost being—her realest self—that had locked thus vise-like.
Had she desired to with all her might she could not have dragged it open. One may not love, or hate, or even be wroth at will. ”

“ Amaldi said nothing. She had not yet heard the sound of his voice. But his eyes said: "Please come."
"Very well," said Sophy to Olive.
When she entered the ballroom, she felt, rather than saw, people turning to look after her. She had the oddest feeling of being glad that she was tall—that there was so much of her to feel that keen flame of life that had sprung up so suddenly within her.
A woman who admired her said to a man:
"Do look at Sophy Chesney! It does her good to be immured by her ogre. She's simply ablaze, to-night!" ”