The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 399: what you’re looking at

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

364 REYNOLDS’ WORKS and his appearance indicated a distinguished position, as we have already said that hers likewise did. But that he was not her husband, Clement Redcliffe saw at a glance, for though they were unconscious of his presence, yet there was something evidently stealthy in their meeting at that place. No husband would have held her hand as he did; no wife in the presence of a husband would have worn that ex- pression which was visible in her deep blue brooding eyes, and in the passion-breathing lips, which, slightly apart, afforded a glimpse of the pearls within. And he was speaking in a low, murmuring voice, but with a tender persuasiveness of the look, as if he were pleading a cause whose only argu- ment was love, and to which she could not yield with honour to herself. The rising and sinking of the shawl folded over her full and swelling bust denoted the agitation which reigned in her heart; though she stood otherwise perfectly still and motionless, with that fair white hand abandoned to her lover, and with the colour coming and going rapidly upon her beautiful damask cheeks. Such was the spectacle which Clement Redcliffe beheld almost at the first glance, or at least within the few moments which he lingered upon the threshold of the conservatory. The man who had charge thereof was attending to a cus- tomer at a little distance on the terrace; that tender pair evidently thought themselves altogether alone and unper- ceived, snatching perhaps the quick stolen interview of a few minutes, but these few minutes constituting a period in which a whole world of heart’s feelings became mutually expressed. Redcliffe caught the words, ‘‘ Madame Angel- ique’’ and “M. Bertin,’ amidst the otherwise inaudible murmurings of the young man’s voice, — inaudible however only to him, for the lady was evidently drinking in with mingled hope and fear — love’s passion and alarm — every syllable that came from her companion’s lips. Redcliffe turned abruptly away, but glancing through the glass of the conservatory, he saw that the tender couple still re- mained in precisely the same position, and that so far from their being startled by that movement on his part, his presence had continued utterly unperceived. “ That scene is but too intelligible,’ he thought to him- self, as he proceeded to the conservatory at the other end of the terrace. ‘‘ There is a young wife not yet lost, but Gomicbooks (E(0)