eBooks Base 2000

And then the moment of delirium, when the light danced; the one
wild act that lifted her, the despised one, above them all--made her
the supreme figure, to be glanced at by frightened women, stared at by
half-startled, half-admiring men! "Yes," she laughed; but struck by the
sound of her own voice, moved twice round the cavern nervously, and
then dropped again into her old position.
As they carried him away he had laughed at her--like a hound that he
was; he who had praised her for her spirit, and incited her revenge
against others; he who had taught her to strike when she was insulted;
and it was only fit he should reap what he had sown. She was what he,
what other men, had made her. And what was she now? What had she been
once?
She tried to recall her childhood: the man and woman who might have
been her father and mother; who fought and wrangled over her precocious
little life; abused or caressed her as she sided with either; and then
left her with a circus troupe, where she first tasted the power of her
courage, her beauty, and her recklessness.


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