"Yes, I love you," he replied.
A cry escaped Claire. She clung frantically to Philippe; their eyes met, and in inexpressible ecstasy they exchanged their first kiss of love.
OUIDA (LOUISE DE LA RAMÉE)
Under Two Flags
There are few women writers who have created more stir by their works than Louise de la Ramée, the lady who wrote under the pen name of Ouida. Born of English and French parentage at Bury St. Edmund, England, in 1840, she began to turn to account her undoubted literary talents at the age of twenty, when she contributed to the "New Monthly" and "Bentley's Magazine." In the same year appeared her first long story, "Granville de Vigne," which was afterwards renamed and republished as "Held in Bondage." From that time an amazing output of romances fell in rapid succession from her pen, the most picturesque of them, perhaps, being "Under Two Flags" (1867) and "Moths." With respect to the former, although on occasions it exhibits a tendency towards inaccurate observation, the story is told with rare dramatic force and descriptive power. From 1874, Mlle. Ramée made her home in Italy, where, at Lucca, in spite of her reputation as a novelist, she died in straightened circumstances Jan. 25, 1908.
I.--An Officer of the Guards
A Guardsman at home is always luxuriously accommodated, and the Hon. Bertie Cecil, second son of Viscount Royallieu, was never behind his fellows in anything; besides, he was one of the crack officers of the 1st Life Guards, and ladies sent him pretty things enough to fill the Palais Royal.
Then Hon. Bertie was known generally in the brigade as "Beauty," and the appellative, gained at Eton, was in no way undeserved. His face, with as much delicacy and brilliancy as a woman's, was at once handsome, thoroughbred, languid, nonchalant with a certain latent recklessness, under the impassive calm of habit.
Life petted him and pampered him; lodged him like a prince, dined him like a king, and had never let him feel the want of all that is bought by money. How could he understand that he was not as rich a man as his oldest and closest comrade, Lord Rockingham, a Colossus, known as "the Seraph," the eldest son of the Duke of Lyonesse?