"You
are very cruel, Princesse!" he said, "Surely unnecessarily bitterly
cruel!"
"Cher philosophe, I have loved!" she replied, "And that is why I am
cruel. I have loved and have been deceived in love,--and that kind
of thing often turns the most patient Griselda into an exceptionally
fierce tiger-cat! I am not quite a tiger-cat,--but I confess I do
not like one-sidedness in anything, Nature's tendency being to
equalise--equalise--till we are all flattened down into one level,--
the grave! At the present moment we are treading on a mixture of
kings and saints and heroes,--all one soil you see, and rather
marshy,--badly in need of draining at all times!" She laughed a
little. "Frankly, I assure you, it is to me the most deplorable
arrangement that a true woman should be destined to give all the
passion and love of her life to one man, while the same man scatters
his worthless affections about like halfpence among dozens of drabs!
My dear Mr. Leigh, do not frown at me in that tragic way! I am not
blaming YOU! I am not in the least inclined to put you in the
general category,--at least not at present. You do not look like the
ordinary man, though you may be for all that! Expression is very
deceptive!" She laughed again, then added, "Think of our sweet
Angela, for instance! Unless a merciful Providence intervenes, she
will marry Florian Varillo,--and no doubt he will make her invite
Mademoiselle Pon-Pon to her house to dine and sleep!"
"She loves him!" said Aubrey simply.
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