The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 168: what you’re looking at

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

ZOE 145 Mr. Armytage’s house, and one of those scions of the aris- tocracy whom the wealthy parvenu had, through the aid of the Duke of Marchmont, secured as the “lions” of his saloons. He therefore received Octavian with becoming courtesy, though with no more cordiality than he had been previously wont to display, for he was careful not to excite a suspicion of the machinations which were in progress. Zoe received the young nobleman with a ladylike affability, and the conversation at first turned upon indifferent sub- jects. Suddenly Mr. Armytage recollected that he had letters to send off to the post, and he begged his lordship to excuse his temporary absence from the room. Meredith was now alone with Zoe, and he gave the conver- sation an intellectual turn. The young lady entered easily into this train of discourse. It was pursued, and both be- came gradually more and more interested in it. Meredith saw that Zoe possessed a well-cultivated mind; he had all along known that she was accomplished, but he did not suspect the existence of so much of wisdom’s treasures in her understanding. He was the more charmed, too, inasmuch as her remarks were made with a mingling of well-bred ease and maidenly bashfulness which totally divested her of the obtrusiveness of the “ blue-stocking.’”” He had come ex- pressly thus to draw her out, or, in other words, to fathom the depths of her mind, for he was neither so selfishly de- graded in his own disposition, nor so desperate in his cir- cumstances, as to resolve all in a moment to seek as a wife a young female of shallow intellect and frivolous disposition. He remained an hour with Zoe on this occasion, so that he far exceeded the usual limit of a morning call, but the inter- val appeared to him the lapse of a few minutes only. He had never known so much of Zoe before, and he was as much surprised and delighted at what he thus found her to be on a better acquaintance. He took his leave, and striking into one of the most se- eluded portions of the Regent’s Park, deliberated with him- self. Did he love Zoe? No, assuredly not. Could he bring himself to love her? He sighed. That sigh was an answer to the question, — an answer in the negative. The image of the lovely unknown of whom he had spoken to the Duke of Marchmont suddenly rose up to his mental vision, and he felt that his heart was inextricably engaged there. Then, EORNICLOOOKS (E(O)