cceed to cruel storms of rage.
She was a siren that can both kiss and devour; laugh like a devil, or
weep as angels can. She could concentrate in one instant all a woman's
powers of attraction in a single effort (the sighs of melancholy and
the charms of maiden's shyness alone excepted), then in a moment rise
in fury like a nation in revolt, and tear herself, her passion, and her
lover, in pieces.

Dressed in red velvet, she trampled under her reckless feet the stray
flowers fallen from other heads, and held out a salver to the two
friends, with careless hands. The white arms stood out in bold relief
against the velvet. Proud of her beauty; proud (who knows?) of her
corruption, she stood like a queen of pleasure, like an incarnation of
enjoyment; the enjoyment that comes of squandering the accumulations of
three generations; that scoffs at its progenitors, and makes merry over
a corpse; that will dissolve pearls and wreck thrones, turn old men into
boys, and make young men prematurely old; enjoyment only possible to
giants weary of their power, tormented by reflection, or for whom strife
has become a plaything.

"What is your name?" asked Raphael.

"Aquilina."

"Out of _Venice Preserved_!" exclaimed Emile.

"Yes," she answered. "Just as a pope takes a new name when he is exalted
above all other men, I, too, took another name when I raised myself
above women's level."

"Then have you, like your patron saint, a terrible and noble lover, a
conspirator, who would die for you?" cried Emile eagerly--this gleam of
poetry had aroused his interest.

"Once I had," she answered. "But I had a rival too in La Guillotine. I
have worn something red about me ever since, lest any happiness should
carry me away."

"Oh, if you are going to get her on to the story of those four lads
of La Rochelle, she will never get to the end of it. That's enough,
Aquilina. As if every woman could not bewail some lover or other, though
not every one has the luck to lose him on the scaffold, as you have
done. I would a great deal sooner see a lover of mine in a trench at the
back of Clamart than in a rival's arms."

All this in the gentlest and most melodious accents, and pronounced by
the prettiest, gentlest, and most innocent-looking little person that
a fairy wand ever drew from an enchanted eggshell. She had come
up noiselessly, and they became aware of a slender, dainty figure,
charmingly timid blue eyes, and white transparent brows. No i