This cloud, however, being it seemed dispelled, the star had shone but more brilliant in its high place, and she the more passionately worshipped it.

To sit apart and see her idol's radiance, to mark her as she reigned and seemed the more royal when she bent the knee to royalty itself, to see the shimmer of her jewels crowning her midnight hair and crashing the warm whiteness of her noble neck, to observe the admiration in all eyes as they dwelt upon her--this was, indeed, enough of happiness.
"She is, as ever," she murmured, "not so much a woman as a proud lovely goddess who has deigned to descend to earth.

But my lord does not look like himself.

He seems shrunk in the face and old, and his eyes have rings about them.

I like not that.