Guy heard her murmur, very low and
plaintively, "I have loved you so long--so dearly!"
Mistress as she was of every art that can deceive, I believe she only
spoke the simple truth then. With all the energy of her strong and
sensual nature, I believe she did worship Livingstone. To most men she
would have been far more dangerous thus, in the abandonment of her
sorrow, than ever she had been in the insolence of her splendid beauty.
There are some women, very few (Johnson's fair friend, Sophy
Streatfield, was one), whom weeping does not disfigure. Their eyelids do
not get red or swollen; only the iris softens for a moment; and the
drops do not streak or blot the polished cheeks, but glitter there,
singly, like dew on marble; their sobs are well regulated, and follow in
a certain rhythm; and the heaving bosom sinks and swells, not too
stormily. It is a rare accomplishment. Miss Bellasys had not practiced
it often, being essentially Democritian--not to say Rabelaisian--in her
philosophy; but she did it very well. Like every other emotion, it
became her.
Guy hardly glanced at her, and never answered a word.
She rose to go; then turned all at once to try one effort more. "Yes, we
must part," she said.
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