The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 296: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XXVIII MATRIMONIAL STORMS Ir was the morning after the scenes and entertainments just described, and if we penetrate into the breakfast-parlour at the Earl of Curzon’s house, we shall find his lordship and Editha lounging at the table, sipping their chocolate, and carrying on a broken kind of discourse with listless tone and idle manner, partly real and partly assumed. ‘‘ And so last night, while we were returning home in the carriage,’ said the Earl of Curzon, “ you intimated that I paid a little too much attention to Lady Prescott — ”’ ‘“‘ T did not make the remark, Charles,’”’ interrupted Editha, “before you said something sneering and sarcastic con- cerning Lord Sackville’s attentions toward me.” “Well, I only said what I thought,’’ resumed the noble- man, stretching out his arms and yawning. “ Sackville is a deuced handsome fellow, and I told you that I thought he was smitten with you, that was all.’ “No, it was not all,’ said Editha, extending herself with a still more languid abandonment upon the sofa, or lounge, whereon she was reclining, her symmetrical form loosely enveloped in an elegant morning wrapper, “‘ for you even intimated that I received his lordship’s attentions with an apparent willingness.’’ “T don’t think I used the word willingness,’’ observed the earl. ‘‘ I said that you might have shown him a little more coolness.”’ ‘No, reserve was the term, now that I recollect,’’ inter- rupted the countess, ‘ and I told you in reply that it is not in my nature to appear distant and reserved to any friend or acquaintance, unless it were to resent a marked insult.”’ 263 ECoOnniclooolkks (C(O)