Page:Wanda, by Ouida.djvu/18

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WANDA.
9

if you put my pearls or my diamonds on Mdme. Chose or Baroness Niemand, they would gather and gaze quite as much.'

He laughed.

'Last night I think you wore no ornaments except a few tea-roses, and I saw them follow you just the same. It is very odd that you never seem to understand that you are a beautiful woman.'

'I am glad to be so in your eyes, if I never shall be in my own. As for that popularity of society, it never commended itself to me. It has too strong a savour of the mob.'

'When you are so proud to the world why are you so humble to me?'

She was silent a moment, then said:

'I think when one loves any other very much, one becomes for him altogether unlike what one is to the world. As for being proud, I have never fairly made out whether my pride is humility or my humility pride, and none of my confessors have ever been able to tell me. I assure you I have searched my heart in vain.'

A shadow passed over his face; he thought that there even would be pride enough to send him out for ever from her side if she knew ——

One day she suggested to him that he should visit Romaris.