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"'Tis to the care of noble tenderness and love she is willing to give herself," said Osmonde. "She is a Woman a Woman!" His lordship of Dunstanwolde turned and looked at him with a curious interest. "Gerald," he said, "'tis singular that you should speak so, though you say so true a thing.
Sometimes he came there when the Duke of Osmonde was with her this happened more than once and then her ladyship's face, which was ever warmly beautiful when Osmonde was near, would curiously change. It would grow pale and cold; but in her eyes would burn a strange light which one man knew was as the light in the eyes of a tigress lying chained, but crouching to leap.
When he was first bought and brought home, Mistress Anne turned ashy at the sight of him, and in her heart of hearts grieved bitterly that it had so fallen out that his Grace of Osmonde had been called away from town by high and important matters; for she knew full well, that if he had been in the neighbourhood, he would have said some discreet and tender word of warning to which her ladyship would have listened, though she would have treated with disdain the caution of any other man or woman.
His Grace of Osmonde had been in France, called there by business of the State, and during his absence the gossip concerning the horse Devil had taken the place of that which had before touched on himself.
What a fit setting for her beauty would seem the grand saloons of Osmonde House! What a fit and queen-like wearer she would be for the marvellous jewels which had crowned fair heads and clasped fair throats and arms for centuries!
The episode of the breaking of Devil, the unexpected return of his Grace of Osmonde, the preparations for the union, had given an extra stimulant to that interest in her ladyship which was ever great enough to need none.
"There is no other woman who is so like a queen," Osmonde said, with tenderest smiling. "And yet your eyes wear a look so young in these days that they are like a child's. In all their beauty, I have never seen them so before." "It is because I am a new created thing, as I have told you, love," she answered, and leaned towards him. "Do you not know I never was a child.
Among the earliest to wait upon her was his Grace of Osmonde, who found her one day alone, save for the presence of Mistress Anne, whom she kept often with her. When the lacquey announced him, Anne, who sat upon the same seat with her, felt her slightly start, and looking up, saw in her countenance a thing she had never beheld before, nor had indeed ever dreamed of beholding.
'Tis only the man who has won England's greatest victories for her who must contend with such things as these." "Mrs. Masham has no enmity against me," said Osmonde. "I have no power she would take from me." "And no wife she would displace about the throne," his Grace added. "The world waits to behold your Duchess still?" "'Tis I who wait," said Osmonde, gravely.
For her sister her prayers were offered up night and morning, and ofttimes in hours between, and to-night she prayed not for herself at all, but for Clorinda and for his Grace of Osmonde, that their love might be crowned with happiness, and that no shadow might intervene to cloud its brightness, and the tender rapture in her sister's softened look, which was to her a thing so wonderful that she thought of it with reverence as a holy thing.
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