His Grace — page 259: what you’re looking at

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

HIS GRACE. 253 thing that you might see fit to tell her about your father’s shortcomings; but I doubt very much whether she does care for you. You haven’t exhibited yourself in a particularly becoming light to her, you see. Candor deserves to be met with candor, so I’ll admit that you might have won her heart at one time, if you had tried to do so; but, by your own admission, you tried to do the contrary. I should imagine that you have been completely successful. Take my advice and let the whole affair pass into the category of might-have-beens. The things that might have been wouldn’t always have turned out well if they had been, and after all, we don’t belong to the class from which dukes and duchesses are recruited, Nora and I.” I confess that the meekness with which Hurstbourne bowed to my ruling disappointed me a little. I thought that he would have been less submissive if he had been really in earnest, and I didn’t quite see why he should have mentioned Nora’s name to me at all unless he had been in earnest. I was, however, convinced that she had overcome her temporary infatuation, and, since: that was the case, it was perhaps just as well that she should not be unsettled by an offer which she would have had no choice but to refuse. The remainder of our walk was accomplished in unbroken silence. Eomicboo gS (E(0)