Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 105: what you’re looking at

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

HER ROYAL LOVER. 97 house, not the least movement. All is tranquil. Then, his hands behind his back, his head bent for- ward, profoundly absorbed in his reflections, in his thoughts, he commences his promenade. Will it compose him? Everything in this room recalls to him her whom he adores, and who will make him insane with jealcusly ; for he cannot rid himself of the idea that the king has come. The large low divans, the easels standing about, the palettes still furnished with paint, the half-finished paintings; all are impregnated with her. A canvas larger than the others turned against the wall attracts his attention. He approaches it: what can that be? He turns it around and illuminates it with the rays of his lantern. There, living, so much it resembles him, stands the king, in full uniform. Maineleko, like Macbeth on seeing the specter of Banquo, utters a smothered cry. “He! always he! He comes then to pose here, and I am ignorant of it!” As it was continually happening to him, the un- happy man was deceiving himself, for this portrait Najeska Ivanowna was painting from a large photo- eraph, and she had destined this work as a bridal present to the Princess Agusta. Brought back to reality by the ludicrousness of his situation, Mineleko was afraid. If Najeska had heard him! In his confusion he does not perceive that a little side door giving on the other side of the studio is open. He was so much absorbed in the furious contemplation of this picture, which he felt was executed as much by the heart as by the brush, that he did not heara dull sound like that of a muffled footstep approaching him, Eomichbooks.com