She
remembered her own terrible agitation one evening at the Austrian
Embassy when the Countess Starnina said to her, seeing Elena pass
by--'What do you think of Lady Heathfield? She was, and is still, I
fancy, a great flame of our friend Sperelli's.'
'Is still, I fancy.' What tortures in a single sentence! She followed
her rival persistently with her eyes through the throng, and more than
once her gaze met that of the other, sending a nameless shiver through
her. Later on in the evening, when they were introduced to one another
by the Baroness Bockhorst, in the middle of the crowd, they merely
exchanged an inclination of the head. And that perfunctory salutation
had been repeated on the rare occasions on which Maria Ferres had joined
in any social function.
Why should these doubts and suspicions, beaten down and stifled under
the flood of her passion, rise up again now with so much vehemence? Why
had she not the strength to repress them or put them away from her
altogether? The least touch brought them up to the surface as lively as
ever.
Her distress and unhappiness increased with every moment. Her heart was
not satisfied; the dream that had risen up within her on that mystical
morning under the flowering trees in sight of the sea, had not come
true. All that was purest and fairest in that love had remained down
there in the sequestered glades in the symbolical forest that bloomed
and bore fruit perpetually in contemplation of the Infinite.
Pages:
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369