The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 47: what you’re looking at

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

28 REYNOLDS’ WORKS a chill fell upon my heart, for it instantaneously struck me that he must either be her husband, or else that she was engaged to be married to him; or else wherefore should he have addressed her so familiarly? I cannot explain to you the cruel feeling with which this thought inspired me. It was not that I was as yet completely infatuated with Louisa; it was rather a sentiment of profound compassion on behalf of a lovely young creature who I felt assured had already been sacrificed, or was about to be sacrificed, to a man old enough to be her grandfather. I presently turned, that I might meet them again, but I did not see them any more that day. At length wandering away from the King’s Road, I was walking in another part of Brighton, when in my distracted mood I came in somewhat rude contact against a lady who was just issuing forth from a linen-draper’s shop. Asa matter of course I lifted my cap and made the sincerest apologies. They were accepted with what ap- peared to be a degree of familiar courtesy that struck me as strange on the part of the lady whom I thus beheld for the first time. She seemed inclined to keep me in conversation, and yet with an air of so much politeness that it would have amounted to actual rudeness on my part to hurry at once away. Methought that her dark eyes were fixed upon me with a somewhat peculiar expression, a certain degree of languishing boldness, which gradually in my estimation as- sumed the expression of an overture. Do not think me vain, Mr. Ashton. I never was conceited, much less was I a boaster in respect to the other sex.” ‘Pray do not think it necessary to give me any such as- surance,” said Christian. ‘‘ Doubtless this lady was smitten with your appearance; for if I understand you rightly, you were in your uniform, and the fair sex are ever inclined to be captivated by officers.” : ‘““T was in my undress-uniform,” responded Edgar Bev- erley, “‘ and I ought perhaps to have informed you that the lady of whom I am speaking was exceedingly handsome, but some few years older than myself. She was a very fine woman, but the longer I contemplated her, the more did her looks impress me with the conviction that she was not altogether as modestly or as virtuously inclined as she ought to have been. Had I chosen at that instant to have ini- tiated a little affair of gallantry, I might have succeeded; ; CORNICLIOOKS (E(0)