"Ah! virginal purples! star-like dawns! Ah! early mornings and late tendernesses! Illusive universe, begone, shameful Satan repulsing my caresses! She has smiled! Again, again! She opens her arms to me! Ah! God! is it possible? Yes, I knew it. Ah! of words, nothing is closed to verbal incantations. On what does happiness depend?
"She opens her arms to me, she loves me. Here I am, here! How I am going to adore you, how I am going to recite lovely litanies to you, and all the essential orisons. Nothing separated me from you but your will, and your will accepts me, finally cleansed of human defilement by the baptism of blood. Joy more indefinable than the immaculate conception, the virgin of virgins opens to the sinner the ivory portals of pure love...."
Dreaming of such things, Guido leaped over the balustrade, precipitantly towards the madonna who awaited him, laughing and with outstretched arms.—Ave, Rosa speciosa!
[CHAPTER XXXVIII]
PRIDE
"... Voire mesme que si un de nos confraires
se monstroit attaché à quelque chose,
qu'il en soit aussistost privé...."
Règle de S. Benoist, ch. xxxviii.
When Azélia presented herself the next morning, her face bearing the marks of tears and trouble, for "she was now sure that Madame had been murdered; never had Madame gone away so long without notifying her," Entragues was able to reassure her: