Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 99: what you’re looking at

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

HER ROYAL LOVER. 91 yesterday that his majesty had retired very early, and I was afraid that he might be indisposed.” “They have told you that?” “Yes.” “Ah, well! they were wrong. His majesty has played piquet peaceably until one o’clock in the morning.” One o’clock in the morning! It was precisely at this hour that the man had leaped out of the win- dow; he knew it, for although half asleep, we recol- lect, he had heard the big bell of the chateau at the moment when he re-entered his chamber. It was not Charles Ferdinand then. However, Mineleko said to himself that if he whom he had perceived was the king, for fear of an indiscretion the monarch would have given to all the aides-de camp the formal order to say that which Adlersward had just communicated to him. During the whole day, the embassy, generally so quiet, was the theater of a perpetual coming and going. Mineleko awaited the night with great impatience. This man, generally so intelligent, was blinded to such an extent by suspicion and jealousy, that he imagined that the individual who had already come not being able during the day to find an opportunity to communicate with the princess, would perhaps return at night to concert with his sweetheart or his accomplice, for, in his tenor and his rage, he firmly believed at times that Najeska Ivanowna was either the one or the other. The dinner of the husband and wife passed in almost absolute silence. Both of them were dis- heartened. Najeska Ivanowna furtively watched Eomichbooks.com