She had never had aught to regret; it was not possible that she could realize what regret was.
Hence men called and found her very cold; yet those of her own kin whom she loved knew that the heart of a summer rose was not warmer, nor sweeter, nor richer than hers.

And first among these was her brother--at once her guardian and her slave--who thought her perfect, and would no more have crossed her will than he would have set his foot on her beautiful, imperial head.

Corona d'Amague had been his friend; the only one for whom he had ever sought to break her unvarying indifference to her lovers, but for whom even he had pleaded vainly until one autumn season, when they had stayed together at a great archducal castle in South Austria.

In one of the forest-glades, awaiting the fanfare of the hunt, she rejected, for the third time, the passionate supplication of the superb noble who ranked with the D'Ossuna and the Medina-Sidonia.

He rode from her in great bitterness, in grief that no way moved her--she was importuned with these entreaties to weariness.