Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 298: what you’re looking at

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

290 _ HER ROYAL LOVER. The King of Thessaly sent for his private secre- tary. “Let me speak to him,” said the empress, fearing that the king might not be positive enough in his orders. The arrival of the secretary did not take place 1m- mediately. It was some distance from the room in which he labored to the apartments reserved for the empress, where the King of Thessaly was at pres- ent obliged to remain all day. While waiting, the king, very much embarrassed at the grotesque role which he was obliged to play by the enraged mother-in-law, pretended to peruse a book, the empress, purple and breathless with rage, was walking to and fro like an animal in- closed in a cage, too narrow to contain it. As the secretary appeared: “Moll,” cried the empress, after having imparted to him that which had occurred, “you must repair immediately to the office of the official journal; there, you will say that the king forbids—do you understand me?—forbids this announcement to ap- pear in any journals.” The secretary, bowing to the earth before the sov- ereign, departed to execute promptly the royal order. Hardly was he at the door before the empress, re- considering, recalled him: “Apropos, Monsieur Moll, the king wishes to speak to the president of the supreme tribunal.” The king, stupefied, endeavored to make a gest- ure of denial; but the empress did not appear to pay any attention to it. “At what hour does his tants? desire to see the comichooks.com