Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 51: what you’re looking at

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

HER ROYAL LOVER, 43 Najeska Ivanowna, stupefied, looked at her hus- band. “It seems to me,” said she, haughtily, “that, be- fore the evident adoration of his majesty, I had no need to give myself much trouble to attract him!” An impudent remark that vexation drew from her. “Ah, you confess then that he is smitten with you?” roared the prince. “Goodness! are you going to commence again? Is this another foolish scene which I must undergo? I warn you, I had already a headache; if you con- tinue you will give me one of those violent head- aches which annoy you so much and which you al- ways provoke. I pray you, then, to leave me.” In order to compel her husband to leave her chamber, Najeska Ivanowna violently pulled the bell-cord suspended near her bed; her waiting-maid came immediately. At the entrance of this domes- tic, Monsieur de Mineleko, very sulky, and very dis- agreeable, returned to his office, where he vainly endeavored to conceal his pre-occupation from his secretaries, whom he kept near him in order to re- ceive the instructions which the ambassador might have to give them after the perusal of his dispatches. Najeska Ivanowna knew that until then the prince was ignorant of her secret engagement with Heiligenthal. And how would he have been able to know it? it had taken place at Nice. Besides, Heiligenthal, never having appeared in the capital of Caucasus, was unknown to the prince; chance alone, then, would have been able to inform him of it. But, undoubtedly, this secret was in the power of Ivan Alexandrowitch, who was at Nice at the same time as Najeska Ivanowna, and seemed to (E(0) mm C eo\o) ES (E(0)