The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-02-20

sincerity of his regret and the loyalty of
| his return.
True, she had sacrificed to it an inno-
cent woman but it was only natural that
! the fullness of her own triumph had
weighed more with her than any memory
/ of her rivals misery. Like all great con-
! querors she felt that it was not for her to
| heed or to pause for the fallen.
She was in no way cruel woman, but
| she felt the contempt of all women who
| have great dominion over men for those
who cannot attain equal power over
them.
"She has loveliness, and youth, and
many rare qualities of both heart and
| mind, and yet she can only sigh and suffer
! because he is faithless !" she had often
thought with wondering disdain of Gladys
| as she had studied her in society. She
| allowed nothing in their apparent inter
caurse which could give rise to any scan
/ dial, except such as must be inevitably
| coused bv his continued residence in
Italy. She made him live in his own
| houses, visit her with precaution, and
never publicly presume upon his rela-
tions to her. 1t was her wisdom as well
as her good taste which influenced her.
She knew the truth that
Dulcia ferimus succO renOvamur amOre;
and she did not allow their intimacy to be
degraded into too facile habit which
would inevitably have become with time
careless and over-sure.
She knew his nature and the tempera-
ment OF men too well to allow him that too
| constant access to happiness which soon
results in making such happiness insipid
and unenjoyed. All the faults which had
| cost her so dear in her first association
with him she avoided now; and even still
at times he was so doubtful of his infiu-
! ence over her, despite all the proofs he
had of it, that he asked himself uneasily
whether his surrender to her had not
been demanded by her rather through
pride than love. 1t was the uncertainty,
the stimulant, the modification, which
were needful to sustain at its strength the
passion of a man whose cOnquests had
been as easy as his caprices, and had been
| shOrt-lived.
Even now l do not believe that you
love me as you used to dOl" he said to her
more than once.
She smiled.
"Vhat is love?" she said dreamily.
Sometimes l think it is the most absurd
and the basest feeling of our lives; and
sometimes 1 think it Is the only spark of
| Immortality which we ever have in us"
"It seems to me immortal when | look
/ on YOU" he answered; end he was sin
! cere in what he said.
All these months had passed with him
| In a happiness which had been more
nearly the ideal happiness of his early
! dreams than any be had ever known. His
reconquest of her glorious physical beauty
and the potent and subtitle charm of her
intelligence exercised a sway over him
which was deeper and more enduring
| than the first passion which she had
! excited in him. The amOrOus spell
| which lies in the climate OF the
| country which had always been the land
OF his preference, and the easy languOr OF
! life in it, added to the spell OF her influence
upon him. He marveled however he
| could have been mad enough to leave her;
| he wondered how ne had passed years OF
! hisexistence without her. Either warned
bv her previous loss Of him, or calmed by
| the greatness and completeness OF her
| triumph, or perchance bringing now into
| her relations with him as much of wisdom
as she had once brought of passion, she
! gave him all the loveliness OF love without
| its eXaCtiOns and its violence. She bent
all the varied resources of her mind,
| which were infinite, and all the powers
! of her seduclions, which were endless, to
! prove to him all that he had missed in
missing her, all which no other woman on
earth could give to him; and she sue
ceeded. She succeeded, now that it was
| a matter with her rather OF supremacy,
| and pride, and triumph, than OF love,
| where she had failed when it had been to
| her a thing of life and of death, on which
| all her soul had been cast. Passion serves
women i'll it makes their eyes blind, their
| steps rash. their acts unwise and unsef-
ishness in love serves them still worse.
| Desire of dominion, on the contrary, is
their most safe and subtle servant, placing
| illimitable power in their hands and leav-
ing their sight clear to use il in their own
! interest as they will.
Beatrice Soria had been a better woman
| when he had thought her a worse one, a
tenderer woman when he had thought her
a more violent one; her heart still beat
| for him, but no more with the rash, ardent
! delirious warmth of earlier DAYS DOmi-
nant over her impulses of revived passion
was a colder and more egotistic intent to
make him and to keep him once more
wholly hers.
In the autumn of the year, Guilderoy
was for while in Venice, nominally liv-
| ing at his own paazzino there, whilst she
was at one of the villas of the Brenta,
1 which she had inherited as part of her
| mothers dover; one of those marvels of
art and architecture which stand amidst
! the galdiolus-flled marshes and the green
mulberry-shaded pastures OF the Veneto,
so little known, so rarely visited, but as
much memorials of the greatness and
! luxury of the Venetian patriarchs as are
the streets OF the city herself
! In early autumn when the rose
and white alveole are in flower
| in all the hedges, and the last
aftermath is being mown in the meadows,
| and the barges come down the river laden
with purple and yellow grapes, and the
marvellous sunsets burn over the wide
sDreading waters, and the little gray owls
fit under the poplar shadows, these villas
on the Brent form as lovely retreat as the
world can offer; and the gaiety and the
pageantry of Goldoni and OF Carpaccio
seem to be renewed, and the lovely ladies
and the gay gallants of Rosalba and of
Longhi seem to live again in them.
For the most part they are, unhappily,
abandoned TO neglect, decay and silence |;
but in hers the animation, the brilliancv,
and the courtliness which her society
brought thither were worthy of the tradi-
tions OF Catarina Corner, the adored and
adorable who once had held her court
there.
Guilderoy was little in the city, much at
the villa, and the days were long and
light and sensuous and soft as the music of
Il 4