Alfred de Rosann by G.W.M. Reynolds — page 191: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

> 162 Alfred de Rosann. ‘¢ Precisely : I have procrastinated my departure.” ‘¢ For four-and-twenty hours?” inquired Selina, with a sigh. ‘Do you wish it was for no more?” cried De Rosann, care- lessly : then recollecting that his words might Probably awaken disagreeable ideas, he hastened to add, ‘‘ But, of course, that is a matter of indifference to you. I shall not leave London at least till the expiration of a fortnight, and perhaps not before the 17th or 18th of July: the latter period is the more probable.” _ & Now, indeed, we shall have time to discover your faults,” cried Selina, while the joy that the news afforded her flashed in her eyes, and revivificated a portion of the faded roses that had nearly died upon her cheeks. ‘* Pray, does papa know of this sudden change in your determinations—this new proof of a fickle mind? Ah! how can men reproach us poor frail creatures with vacillation and capriciousness, when they are not themselves more constant to their purposes than , the shade By the light quivering aspen made, as our great poet and novelist of the north has expressed it !” ‘¢ A gallant man will reproach the fair sex for nothing, save its cruelty and indifference to the sighs of its despairing admirers,” said De Rosann, with the common politeness of a Frenchman, who seldom suffers an opportunity of paying a compliment to pass un- heeded. But Alfred's reflections were wandering to other matters at the time,—he thought of his faithful Eloise, and uttered the _above words in a moment of absence, regardless of their import, and forgetful of the manner in which they might be interpreted. Selina was surprised to hear such a sentence issue from the lips of De Rosann: he usually forbore to address an useless flattery to one whose accomplished mind soared above those trifles; and hitherto their conversation had invariably turned upon subjects which, being of a graver nature than the common-place topics of the day, did not admit of the idle nothings and petites bagatelles usually addressed by empty-headed young men to vain and conceited women. Selina therefore attached a certain importance to the reply that De Rosann had made to her defence of her own sex; and instantaneously cast a memorial glance over her conduct, to ascertain if she had ever been guilty of the slightest indifference towards our hero. Her rapid investigation was satisfactory to herself on this head; but it caused a sigh to agitate her bosom, as she inwardly thought, ‘‘ Alfred has never expressed himself in such terms before: perhaps he begins to perceive that I am vain and: giddy, like the generality of my sex, and therefore intends to offer me up the same incense of adulation that he and his contem- poraries present to the coquettish and the proud.” : De Rosann himself forgot the words he had so imprudently uttered as soun as they had left his lips; the image of Eloise was uppermost in his mind, and for several seconds he did not appear to recollect that he was in the society of another individual. At length awaking from his transient reverie, before his absence had amounted to actual rudeness, he hastened to renew the conversation. ECONlNCOOOlKS.CO