The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 191: what you’re looking at

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

164 REYNOLDS’ WORKS contrary, it was his duty to crush and stifle those feelings. This he earnestly resolved to do. He accompanied Zoe for the drive, and the various little evidences of the exquisite sweetness of her temper and the amiability of her disposition, which even the mere tenor of the conversation developed, filled him with remorseful feelings as he remembered all that had passed through his mind while he was with Chris- tina. He forced himself to appear gay, and the unsuspect- ing Zoe fancied not that there was in reality an abstraction and a preoccupation beneath that cheerful surface. He said nothing to her relative to the adventure which might probably lead to a duel. In the first place, a husband seldom or never imparts to a wife the chance of such a casualty, and in the second place, Octavian felt that he could not touch upon the subject without betraying some emotion while speaking of Christina. At about nine o’clock in the evening, as Lord and Lady Octavian Meredith were sitting together in their drawing- room, taking their coffee, a servant entered, and presenting a card to his master, intimated that the gentleman whose name it bore requested to see him. “Ah, Captain Whitby,” said Octavian, with an air of assumed carelessness, so as to prevent his wife from suspect- ing there was anything wrong. ‘I will come down to him at once,’’ and when the footman had left the room, he ob- served, in the same easy, indifferent manner, “‘ The captain has come to inquire into the character of a man I had with me previous to our marriage.” Octavian then descended to the dining-room, where Cap- tain Whitby was waiting to see him. The gallant officer had called on behalf of the Honourable Wilson Stanhope, which it appeared was the name of the individual from whose liber- tine outrage Octavian had rescued Miss Ashton. Meredith penned a hasty note to the Duke of Marchmont, requesting him to act as his second, and this note he begged Captain Whitby to bear to his Grace, who would arrange all pre- liminaries. ‘““T have named time and place in my letter, Captain Whitby,” added Meredith, ‘ and as a matter of course, all parties engaged will observe the strictest secrecy with regard to the proceedings.” “Such is also Mr. Stanhope’s wish,” responded the cap- EONMIELNOO KS (E(0)