Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 122: what you’re looking at

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

114 HER ROYAL LOVER. CHAPTER XIV. AN APPOINTMENT. The hour for the rendezvous appointed by the king arrived at last. Najeska Ivanowna, her long slender fingers im- prisoned in irreproachable gloves, had been ready for some time. While waiting for her husband, she had retired in one of the saloons where, in order to conceal her emotion, she was pretending to read attentively. She wore an elegant costume which, in itself alone, had been sufficient to make the reputation of her tradesman, one of the first tailors of Paris. Almost entirely clad in white, she dis- appeared under a thousand little gauzy puffs which enveloped her like a fleecy cloud. Her round and white neck alone appeared, escaping from some ruches which surrounded it. Mineleko felt a strange sensation of rage wring him at the thought that all those charms, those of “his mistress,” the “mistress of the king,” would re- joice the heart of the latter. “And what avails this empty rage?” said the reason of Mineleko to the ever-increasing anger which invaded him, “it is a sang froid reflection that he requires in order to ac- complish something which might destroy the happi- ness of this criminal king whose satisfied smile he would like to quench in blood, in order to replace it by tears and despair.” At this thought “to makea martyr of a king!” he uttered, in his hope of ven- geance, a cry similar to a wild beast when satiated. While the carriage was conveying them at the (E(o)| AA) (C JOO Ss (E(0)