The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 75: what you’re looking at

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

56 REYNOLDS’ WORKS ‘Yes, I am happy with my amiable duchess,” responded the duke; and once more were his eyes fixed earnestly and scrutinizingly upon Bertram Vivian. ‘* Report had not failed to waft her manifold good qualities to my ears,” he observed, without the slightest change of countenance, ‘‘ even before I had the honour of meeting her Grace this day.”’ ‘And yet methinks, Bertram,” said the duke, “ you hardly treated her with the friendliness of a relative.” The young man gave no immediate answer; he dropped his kerchief, and deliberately picked it up. This interval of a single moment was sufficient for him to recover complete self-possession. | ‘Rest assured, uncle,’’ responded Bertram, ‘ that my conduct shall ever be marked with the profoundest respect toward the Duchess of Marchmont — yes, ever!.”’ The duke bit his lip fora moment. He thought there was something cold and distant in the answer, — something which justified his suspicion that Bertram in his heart hated the match. But yet it was not a reply which would bear any comment on his Grace’s part. It might even admit an inter- pretation which would throw out the delicacy of his nephew’s feelings in the most admirable light. What if he considered that respect was the only, or at least the most becoming demeanour which he ought to adopt toward a lady a year younger than himself, and who had merely become connected with him by marriage with a relative? What if he were to consider that anything savouring of a more advanced cor- diality might touch upon familiarity, and that such familiar- ity might be viewed suspiciously by the world? And then, too, Bertram had really so little to gain if the duke had re- mained unmarried and if he were to die childless. The elder brother, Lord Clandon, would become Duke of Marchmont, he would no doubt marry, he would probably have issue, and Bertram Vivian would gain the empty title of a lord by courtesy, without a peer’s rank, and without a single addi- tional farthing to his income. ) All these thoughts swept through the mind of the Duke of Marchmont in the space of a few moments, and when he again turned his eyes upon Bertram Vivian, there was so much open-hearted frankness, so much lofty intellectuality, so much true grandeur of the soul depicted upon his faultlessly Gomichbooks (E(0)