Idalia

“ Afar from on high, through the gloom of an arched casement, through the swaying flicker of dank leaves, through the transverse lines of iron bars, eyes dark as night, weary as pain, looked down on him;—they were the eyes of Idalia.
She sat in the monastic cell which was her prison-chamber, with the bare hot glare of the sunlight, that burnt all nature black and barren, and made the disease-laden vapours rise up from the swamps below, scarcely entering through the narrow lancet-chink that was the sole casement of this cold stone cage, in which they had shut their brilliant-plumaged bird. ”

“ His bold and sanguine nature quickly grasped at hope; even in all the humility of his love it was not in him to surrender.
Till morning broke beyond the giant mass of St. Angelo, he paced up and down the cliffs, with the waves beating music at his feet. Then he flung himself down on the moss that covered a ledge of the rock, with his saddle beneath his head, as he had lain many a night under Asiatic stars and on Andes slopes, and on yellow Libyan sand; physical fatigue brought sleep, and sleep was gentler to him than his waking life, it gave him dreams, and with his dreams Idalia. ”

“ He had believed in Idalia, as with a woman's absolute unquestioning belief; it struck him hardly, deeply, to know by her own tellíng that she had these ruined broken lives, these Circean cruelties in her past; that the witching splendour of her sorcery had been thus steeped in tears of blood, thus bartered for the gain of triumph and dominion. No fear for himself even now crossed him; his courage was too bold, his passion too ardent. ”

“ Whatever she might be to others, to him she had been as the angel of life. Moreover, there was in Idalia, overlying the proud earnestness that was in her nature, a certain nonchalance—a certain lauguid carelessness—that made her look little beyond the present hour, and change her temperament as immediate influences prevailed. The tradition of birth gave her some blood of the Commneni in her veins; and the insouciance of an epicurean, with the hanghty power of imperial pride, were blent in her as they had been in Manuel. ”

“ Her old superb, disdainful smile came on Idalia's face; the entrance of the churchman had roused in her all her native pride, all her worldly brilliance, all her royal defiance; she knew well enough with whom she had to deal, and the assumption of authority awoke in her all her dignity and dauntlessness.
"Many things?" she repeated, tranquilly. "Possibly! You would wish to know from me—your captive—the secrets of my party, the names of my associates, the securities of my wealth, many other matters that you consider have become yours by right through my conquest?" ”

“ Those of the Countess Idalia must be expiated; they cannot buy absolution either from the church she has blasphemed or the throne she has shaken. Captivity awaits you—captivity till death. Has it no terrors for you—for you, in your beauty. your youth, your magnificence, your reign of love and of pleasure?"
She looked him fall in the eyes:—
"Monsignore, you use strange language for a priest. Whatever my fate be, I merit it; not for the things which you quote against me as crime, but for luring to their graves the lives you and your murderers slew last night." ”

“ With the words he opened a small, long bonbon-box he took from his coat, and tossed Vane one of the little sprays of silver ivy that it held—the badge which all those who would be recognised by Idalia, Countess Vassalis, must wear on their dominoes that night.
"Thanks," said Victor, as he slipped it in his waistcoat-pocket. "I shall be there by one o'clock at latest. Idalia—this wonderful Idalia!—how often I have missed her, how often I have longed to see her; the fairest conspirator in Europe!" ”

“ Carlo of Viana flung himself in the van, his sabre flashing above his head; the gay and splendid dresses of the maskers, glittering in the light, seemed to heave and toss like a sea of colour; they circled her like gardes du corps; their improvised weapons, torn from the tables, from the cabinets, from the walls, whirled in the radiance that burned from innumerable lamps. Idalia's eyes gleamed with such fire as might have been in the eyes of Artemisia when she bore her prow down on the Calyndian ”

“ He answered calmly, still with that restrained and impassive serenity on him; by the tone, he said as though he had spoken it that no menace, no pang, no death, would make Idalia what he was now—a renegade.
"Altro! she is a woman?" said Monsignore, with the mockery of the Neapolitan laugh in the protrusion of his handsome under lip.
"We waste words, Monsignore," said Victor Vane, abruptly. "She is not like other women." ”

“ She was proud, she was daring, she was unscrupulous, she was self-controlled to a marvel, she was, as men counted, cruelly heartless; but in that moment Idalia could have doomed herself to the curse of any eternal travail of expiation—in that moment she could have rent out her living heart where it beat, and have flung it to the kites that hovered in the dusky glow of twilight as the vilest, darkest, most accursed thing that ever beat with life. She had the coldness of the world, and the pitiless serenity of one long used to study strong emotions only as tools to power ”

“ He knew that it was as vain to seek to move or sway her from that serene indifference, as to dash himself against the Capri rocks in striving to uproot them; yet in his desperation he lost all the keen and subtle tact, the fine inscrutable ability, that had never failed him save with her. He laid his hands on the sweeping folds of her dress, with the same gesture of entreaty that Erceldoune had used in the unconscious vehemence of his prayer.
"Idalia—stay! Take heed before you refuse my love, for love it is, God help me." ”

“ He stooped and laid his hand, with the amethyst ring that glittered like a basilisk's eyes, down upon hers; his voice stole very low on her ear.
"Idalia! women of your beauty can bribe more potently than by gold or state-lore. You shall buy your freedom if you will—from me." ”

“ It was late when they rose from the table; cards were begun, while the windows stood open to the midnight, where the southern moon flooded the Mediterranean. Idalia threw herself into the hazard with the eagerness of a gamester; she played with the utmost recklessness, a hectic excitement shone in her eyes, the insouciant defiance of her wit rose with the risks of chance; she staked heavy sums, lost them, and only played the more eagerly still. Impair her charm even this insatiate passion could not do, distasteful though it be in women, and even abhorrent in women who are in their youth ”

“ It was a strange battle-field;—the beautiful ballroom and banqueting-halls of Antina! It was a strange battle-scene!—the circle of the dominoes like a ring of many colours were belted round the form of Idalia like guards around their menaced queen; the dead men were lying with their blood slowly welling out over the rich mosaics and the velvet carpets; the soldiers of the Throne had halted in a broken line; the light that had been lit for the gaieties of the masquerade was shining on carnage and on combat ”

“ He was moved to strong pleasure by the mere thought that she placed confidence, of whatever sort, in him, and he knew by her words that she held his honour, his faitb, and his courage in full esteem; yet as strong a pain smote him heavily. He felt that these great purposes of her life, vaguely as he could imagine them, were dearer to Idalia than any individual love could become, and he felt also that in her manner to him which seemed to place him farther off from her than he had ever been. ”

“ Idalia!—I can bring nothing worthy you, save a straight stroke to free you and a whole strength to love you; but since you have no scorn for those, take my future now and for ever—I trust you as no man ever trusted woman."
He spoke from his inmost soul—spoke with that vivid simple eloquence which came to him in moments of intense feeling; and it stirred her heart as none had ever stirred it; no qualities could have won the reverence of her wayward, dominant, and world-worn nature, as it was won by his chivalrous dignity of faíth, his absolute refusal of the ignoble soil of suspicion. ”

“ A smile crossed his face at the dreaming wildness of his own thoughts; his profound acumen could never so wholly desert him that he could be the prey to any emotion without some sense of ridicule and disdain even for himself; but there was more of paín at his heart than of self-contempt; he felt, even amidst the jealous bitterness that was turning his love into hatred, that he should have become a better and a truer man had Idalia returned his passion.
"I dream like a boy, or a madman!" ”

“ But deepest pity was in her heart for him; she sought to save him, even at all sacrifice to herself, and she saw that it was too late; she knew, as his eyes burned down in to hers, that, though they should part now and for ever, this longing she had wakened would consume him to his grave.
A woman weaker and more pliant would have yielded to that impulse, and have given him tenderness: to the pride and to the truth of Idalia's nature to have stooped so far had not been possible. ”

“ It might be only surface deep; but that surface, at least, was brilliant.
"My table is round, like Arthur's," said Idalia, with a smile, as she sank into her chair. "There should be no precedence at a dinner-table: equality, at least, should exist over soups and entreés!"
"Where the Countess Vassalis is, can there fail to be a place of honour? ”

“ Suddenly she turned and bent rapidly towards him, her eyes looking into his with so full and brilliant a lustre of unuttered scorn, that he started and drew back.
"You sell everything—your body and your soul! What bribe would you take to give me my release?"
"What bribe? None! You are much more to me, my exquisite Idalia, than any gold, well as I love the little god. 'Bribe!' What an ugly word! Bribes are like medicines; every one takes them, but no one talks about them. ”

“ As a dog feels, long before human eyes can see or human ears can hear it, the approaching presence that he loves, so he felt hers before she was near him; through the inner chambers, dark in twilight, where the lights were extinguished and the dawn could ill penetrate, Idalia returned. Her step was weary, and her face, as the illumination from the chandelier, still burning in the window where he stood, fell on it, was pale, even to the lips on which, as some poet has it, "a sigh seemed set"—unuttered. ”

“ She could do this as no other woman could have done; she had dealt with men in all the force of their enmities, all the height of their follies, in their most dangerous hours as in their most various moods; through paths no other of her sex could have approached, Idalia passed unhesitating and with impunity, and one of the secrets of her great power lay in her perfect and unerring knowledge of human nature. ”

“ There were times when he shook opiates into his wines with a hand that recked little whether it shook too little or too much, and would have poured out a death-dose without a tremor; times when ambition seemed worthless as autumn leaves, and he loathed life because life could never yield to him the beauty of one woman. All who once loved Idalia drank of a mandragora that left them little of their natures, nothing of their wisdom. ”

“ Idalia where she stood turned her head, and let her eyes rest full on bis, with a meaning more than any words could ever have expressed.
"Monsignore, it will be as well for us to lay aside these euphuisms. Neither of us believes them, and they weary both. Let us suppose them already uttered, and speak more truly—if a priest can speak so. I am your captive; it has long been one of the supreme ambitions of your life, and one of the most relentless efforts of your Churcb. I have baffled you long; you have trapped me at last. There is no more to be said." ”

“ I suppose you bring news of importance you could not give before them?" she said, with a shade of annoyance in the languor of her voice. He had approached with a quick step, an eager warmth upon his face; he was checked and chilled, vaguely yet irresistibly, as he met her glance. He was rarely to be daunted, still less rarely to be shamed; yet he was both now. He paused involuntarily, his eyes fell, and words died on his lips, as he bowed before her.
"And your intelligence?" she asked.
"Intelligence? Caffradali has deserted us."
Idalia lifted her eyebrows. ”

“ The innocence and fawn-like shyness of a young girl in her earnest spring may be charming in a pastoral, but in real life they are but awkward and tame beside the exquisite witchery, the polished insouciance, the careless disdain, the cultured fascination of a woman of the world. And these were hers in their utmost perfection; a woman of the world she was in the utmost meaning of the words, and all of victory, of power, and of beguilement that the world could give were added, to the beauty of Idalia, Countess Vassalis. ”

“ Idalia, now called Dali, is five leagues from Larnaka, west by north. It proved to be a village of eighty houses, twenty of which were Turkish, and sixty Christian. It had four papases, or priests. I was lodged at the ξενοδοκε̃ ιον, or public lodging, than which nothing could be more wretched. I went the following morning [408] to see the site of ancient Idalia, to the south-east, over a fine plain of whitish soil. Half a dozen stones of rude workmanship, at a spot where the hills form a bogáz, or ravine, were all that now remained. ”