The Story
of Saville
XIII.
The pulse came back to the marble wrist and the faint sad lids unfurled,
And Saville perceived with a wild regret that ’twas not the end of the world,
And slowly she turned on her languid divan, dismissing them all from the room,
And shuddering flung her cerements off, like Lazarus in the tomb,
And dragged her rebellious feet across the velvety carpet, and flung
Herself odalisque- wise on a couch where a mirror magnificent hung.
For women, methinks that the text should read, “If haply ye have all things
And have not beauty, then have ye naught,” for beauty such benison brings
No woman would barter it for a crown or the wealth barbaric of kings!
Ah me! we are gambling our lives away, playing a desperate game
Where we suffer in winning or losing alike,—’tis law, and there's no one to blame,—
And the stake that we play for is only love, and beauty and love are the same,
Or if not the same, then so closely knit that none can dissever the two,—
