A Fair Fraud — page 119: what you’re looking at

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

108 A Fair Fraud ship had opened her eyes to her own power over him. It was not merely that Captain Drury admired her beauty, for Hester had received plenty of admiration during her chequered life, and she had learnt by re- peated experiences how very little admiration has to do with love. More than once, men who had approached her with such marked attentions as to induce her mother to imagine that they desired her for a wife, had after a few weeks suddenly drawn back and disappeared again altogether out of her life. And Hester was shrewd enough to perceive, although her mother was blind to the fact, that they had never had any serious intentions towards her, and that appreciation of her physical charms alone had been the temporary attraction to her side. Perhaps they had asked themselves who and what were these two ladies whose position was so undefined and whose way of living was apparently so precarious? or perhaps it was only something in herself that, whilst it attracted admiration, barred the way to love. : She had believed at first that Captain Drury had entertained no stronger feelings towards her than the others, or if in the depths of her own heart she had dimly hoped, at least she had not dared, in the face of previous dis- appointments, to allow herself to dwell upon those hopes. COMNMUC JOO <S (GO)