The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 160: what you’re looking at

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

THE WIFE'S STRATAGEM 143 events, he had betrayed the delicate circumstance to Malpas, and this was a crime which Lady Sackville was not likely to forgive. If, then, we find Venetia now affecting the amiable toward Curzon, smiling upon him, placing herself upon the sofa by his side, and at once bending upon him a look and assuming an attitude which seemed to declare that she was not unmindful of their past intimacy, if we behold her doing all this, it was because she had a special purpose in view and a particular object to accomplish, to the carrying out of which she made all her feelings of dislike toward the earl entirely subordinate. “T thought, Charles,’ she said, “that the very first person you would have seen, on returning to London, was myself,’ and as she thus spoke she threw into her looks an expression of tender reproach. ‘“My dearest Venetia,” he said, “ I should have com- municated with you this afternoon. Most assuredly I should not have ventured to call upon you after the trans- actions which occurred last night, and in which I am so painfully and seriously involved with your husband.”’ “Come, tell me all-about it,” said Venetia, throwing one of her snowy arms around his neck, and leaning toward him in such a way that her bosom reposed upon his breast and she could thus gaze up into his countenance; “ tell me, I say, all the particulars of this adventure, for you and I, Charles, at all events, are not going to quarrel.” “ You know not how unspeakably happy you render me by this assurance, dearest Venetia,’ exclaimed Curzon, bestowing deeply sensuous caresses upon the wife of that man whom he was about to challenge to a mortal duel for having intrigued with his wife. ‘‘ You look handsomer than ever, Venetia. You are indeed grandly beautiful,’ he continued, and his fingers played with the shining tresses of her luxuriant hair. “ Well, you shall compliment me presently,” she said, with a smile displaying the two rows of pearl which, gleaming in contrast with the moist scarlet of her lips, seemed the ivory portals through which the balmy breath of heaven itself came forth. “Tell me again, I ask you, the details of this adventure of last night.”’ * You must know, my dear Venetia,’”’ responded the earl, “ that for some time past — seven or eight months, perhaps - eonnicbooks.conn