The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

38 REYNOLDS’ WORKS The duchess had for the previous half-hour been prepared for some such question as this, and it was therefore without any visible trepidation that she replied in the affirmative. But she said no more, and no inquiring look was thrown upon Hugh, to seek the motive of the question. ‘It struck me,’’ continued Lord Clandon, ‘‘ when I read the account of your marriage in the newspaper, —I was then in Paris, by the bye, — that the name of Captain Lacey, who was mentioned as your Grace’s father, was not altogether unfamiliar to me, and the moment your venerable parent was just now introduced to me, I felt persuaded I had seen him before. Yes, I recollect, he was once pointed out to me at Oxford — But perhaps your Grace is unaware that I myself passed a couple of years in that city? Indeed, I am afraid,’ he added, with a smile, “ that we collegians were not considered steady enough for reception into private families.” Eliza slowly turned her looks upon Lord Clandon, to assure herself whether there was any hidden meaning in his re- mark, — any pointed allusion to the one exception which had been made in favour of his brother Bertram with regard to a reception at Captain Lacey’s house at Oxford; but she was convinced that he intended nothing, and that it was merely in a conversational manner he had thus spoken. ‘Yes,’ said Eliza, in answer to a question which he had put, “‘ I was aware that you were at Oxford.” ‘It is somewhat singular,’’ Hugh went on to observe, ‘“‘ that we should have been in the same town a compara- tively short while back, yet such total strangers to each other, and now that we should meet — for me,” he added, with a smile and a gentle inclination of the head, ‘‘ to have the honour of addressing your Grace as a relation. Let me see, it was two years last June since I and my brother Ber- tram left Oxford. I can assure you I was by no means sorry; I was getting heartily tired of the same kind of life, though it was all pleasure. But then pleasures pall upon the senses,’’ he added, with the languid tone and the jaded look of a man who had drunk to satiety of that cup of pleasure whereof he spoke. ‘‘ As for Bertram, I don’t know how it was, but he was wretched to a degree at leaving college. Perhaps he was not quite so wild as I was, and had rather a fancy for his studies. Don’t think the worse of me because I now EGomichbooks (E(0)