Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 130: what you’re looking at

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

122 HER ROYAL LOVER. rendezvous, and seeing her husband tranquil, in ap- pearance at least (he had not made any scene since the day before}, felt reviving in her the pleasures of life, so quickly youth forgets even the most terrible impressions. Bless me! what happiness, if this jealousy, which since the day of her marriage had left her neither relaxation nor repose, would quiet her, at last, and would permit her to enjoy a little peace and tranquillity. “ Will you ride with me, this morning, my friend?” asked, a little hypocritically, the trembling Najeska Ivanowna, on Thursday morning. Was she pleased or annoyed by the attentions of the king? Did he interest her a little as a man, or simply on account of his prestige as a crowned head? The whole night she had asked herself these questions; for half-frightened, and half-flat- tered by this interview which he had imposed on her, she did not seem to be able to define clearly that which was passing in her. Seized by a vague uneasiness, She was for a moment upon the point of confessing all to her husband. Toa husband less jealous, less violent, she would have certainly done so. But, alas! she knew what each confidence had cost her! He had always refused to admit the entire accuracy of that which she had related to him, and his suspicious character, his ill-balanced nerves, led him to believe that she concealed from him half of the truth. For him all proceeded from her; if such avowals had been uttered by her lovers, it was because she had attracted them by her frivolity, her coquetries. He remained convinced that she exaggerated one part and abridged the other; when, on the con- trary, the Jively and inconsiderate character of Gomicbooks: co