The Countess Natalie, despite the Governor's prohibition, was addicted
to roving over the cliffs by herself, finding kinship in the sterile
crags and futile restlessness of the ocean. She had learned that
although change of scene lightened the burden, only death would release
her from herself.
"She will get over it," said the Princess Helene to Estenega. "I was in
love twice before I met Alex, so I know. Natalie is so beautiful that
some day some man, who will not look in the least like poor Alexis, will
make her forget."
Estenega, being a man of the world and having consequently outgrown the
cynicism of youth, also knowing women better than this fair Minerva
would know them in twenty lifetimes, thought differently, and a battle
ensued.
Natalie, meanwhile, wandered along the cliffs. She passed the town
hurriedly. Several times when in its vicinity before, the magnetism of
an intense gaze had given her a thrill of alarm, and once or twice she
had met face to face the miller's son--a forbidding youth with the
skull of the Tartar and the coarse black hair and furtive eyes of the
Indian--whose admiration of her beauty had been annoyingly apparent.
Pages:
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393