Eustacia sighed--it was no fragile maiden sigh, but a sigh which shook
her like a shiver. Whenever a flash of reason darted like an
electric light upon her lover--as it sometimes would--and showed his
imperfections, she shivered thus. But it was over in a second, and
she loved on. She knew that he trifled with her; but she loved on. She
scattered the half-burnt brands, went indoors immediately, and up to
her bedroom without a light. Amid the rustles which denoted her to be
undressing in the darkness other heavy breaths frequently came; and the
same kind of shudder occasionally moved through her when, ten minutes
later, she lay on her bed asleep.




7--Queen of Night


Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. On Olympus she would
have done well with a little preparation. She had the passions and
instincts which make a model goddess, that is, those which make not
quite a model woman. Had it been possible for the earth and mankind to
be entirely in her grasp for a while, she had handled the distaff, the
spindle, and the shears at her own free will, few in the world would
have noticed the change of government. There would have been the same
inequality of lot, the same heaping up of favours here, of contumely
there, the same generosity before justice, the same perpetual dilemmas,
the same captious alteration of caresses and blows that we endure now.

She was in person full-limbed and somewhat heavy; without ruddiness, as
without pallor; and soft to the touch as a cloud. To see her hair was