The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 134: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER IX ALEXIS OLIVER Ir was about eight o’clock in the evening of that same day, and the scene shifts to a hotel at the West End. In the coffee-room of this hotel Alexis Oliver was seated at a table, sipping his claret, and now and then partaking of the dessert spread before him. We have already said that he was a young man of re- markable personal beauty, not above one and twenty, and possessed of features chiseled to a degree of even feminine delicacy. With a purse well filled from the ample resources of Mrs. Oxenden, Alexis was leading a life of dissipation, and enjoying himself in the manner best suited to his de- praved tastes and debauched habits. He was seated at that table, reflecting joyously upon the hopes which Mrs. Oxenden had lately been throwing out relative to her intention of making herself Duchess of Marchmont. For a few days this idea had seemed to be reduced to hopelessness by the duke’s illness, which it was feared would terminate fatally, but Alexis Oliver had this afternoon been informed of the turn which had taken place in favour of Marchmont’s recovery. It was there- fore with additional gusto that he was now enjoying his claret, having dined alone at that West End hotel where we find him. Several other gentlemen had been dining at the same place, but one by one they had taken their departure, and Alexis was now alone in that coffee-room. He had not, however, been left a quarter of an hour by himself when the door opened and two newcomers made their appear- ance. One was Captain Stanley, who, as the reader will recollect, was a young man of about four and twenty, ex- 113 CORE Oe SS) (©)