The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 73: what you’re looking at

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

54 REYNOLDS’ WORKS ance. How handsome did he look! — but not finely and majestically handsome; it was rather a delicate and intel- lectual but still masculine beauty which characterized him. There was no colour upon his cheeks, and his glossy dark whiskers threw out the paleness of those cheeks all the more visibly. But the exquisite classic profile, the haughty curl of the upper lip, and the godlike nobility of the alabaster brow, with the raven curls clustering around it, rendered that head a model of sculptural perfection. His movements were slow, yet not sluggish; they were replete with ease and elegance, but they, as well as the expression of his countenance, in- dicated to observers generally the thoughtfulness of his mind, and to Eliza alone the existence of a deep, ineffable, imperishable sorrow in his heart. His voice was, as it were, clouded from the same cause, but full of a fine masculine harmony; and when, as he glided with ease into the discourse that was progressing as he entered, a smile appeared upon his lips, it was a cold, glacial smile, resembling the light which the sun flings upon ice. When dinner was announced, it became Bertram’s duty —as the last male comer, and likewise as a relative — to escort the duchess to the banqueting-room. It was only with a cold courtesy that he approached her; with the same cold reserve did she bow slightly as she took his arm, but not with more airy lightness sits the butterfly upon the flower than lay the fingers of Eliza upon the arm of Bertram Vivian. As they headed the procession to the banqueting- room, Bertram spoke of the weather, of the beauty of the erounds, and of the most indifferent topics. It was the same as he sat on her right hand at the dinner-table; and when he took wine with her, the bows that were exchanged were the merest and the slightest inclination of the head, without a smile upon either countenance. All was chilling and dis- tant between them. Thus the dinner passed away, and every one, not even excepting the duke himself, had noticed that there was a strange formal reserve, a chilling cere- monial distance, with merely the gloss of well-bred courtesy over all, between the duchess and Bertram Vivian. But of course no remark was verbally made, though covert and stealthy looks of surprise were exchanged. The natural impression was that Bertram, less generous, less magnani- mous than his elder brother, looked with ill-disguised dis- Gomichboo S (E(0)