The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 97: what you’re looking at

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

THE MILLINER AND HER MASTER 73 were as fine as ever, the smile that occasionally revealed them was sickly and wan. The motions and attitudes of the milliner had lost their buxom graces and their elasticity; they were now languid and drooping. A melancholy inflec- tion had subdued the harmonious joyousness of her voice, care was in every look, woe upon every feature, sorrow in every accent; and the buxom, gay, and wanton Mrs. Brace had become changed in the course of a short time into the fading, broken-spirited, and passionless woman. The supper was spread upon the table, and two or three bottles of wine stood upon the buffet ready to be decanted if required, when Mr. Frederick Dray entered the room. Tossing down his hat in a corner, he flung himself into an armchair with the unmistakable self-abandonment of a man who is ill at ease alike in mind and body. Then, fixing his eyes upon Mrs. Brace, he said in a savage tone, ‘ Well, always these mournful looks whenever I come home. What the devil does it mean? ” ““T have told you over and over again, Frederick,” an- swered the milliner, in a deep, sorrowful voice, ‘‘ that I am unhappy — very unhappy, and I cannot therefore control my looks.” “Then why don’t you drink champagne and drown care?’ demanded Dray, brutally. ** Because when the effect goes off and the period of re- action comes,’ replied the woman, ‘‘ I feel so miserable that I am afraid to be alone, lest I should commit suicide. This also have I told you before a dozen times, and yet you are always putting the same question to me.”’ ‘“‘ Because I hate to see you look so cursed unhappy,” rejoined Dray. ‘‘ Wretchedness is catching, and when you’re in bad spirits like this I always begin to feel such dismal forebodings. In fact, I don’t know what the devil has been the matter with me for the last three or four days; but one thing is certain, that I am deucedly out of sorts.” “ Will you not take any supper? ”’ asked the milliner, but only with a sort of mechanical formality and not with any manifestation of tender concern for her paramour’s indis- position. ‘“ No, I can’t eat,’’ he replied; ‘‘ and what’s worse, I seem to have got a nausea for drinking also.” CONMUC OO) SS (GO)