Her Faithful Knight — page 156: what you’re looking at

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

152 Passion and Poetry. “She shall love me,” he said to himself as he left the house. “She shall quiver with delight at my touch; she shall listen and wait for my voice; she shall feel my com- ing before I appear. A woman who can hate can also love.” But when he met her again on the platform during the course of the Sunday migration of the company to East- bourne, his manner was very humble and gentle, and he contrived to ask for forgiveness for having “lost his head a little” at their last interview. “T am sure you would forgive me,” he murmured, “if you knew how bitterly I have reproached myself.”’ ‘Please say no more about it,’ Miss Knight said grave- ly, but with a modicum of graciousness. Since that little scene at her lodgings in Brighton Dorothy had learned from Mrs. Stouton-Chepe that the laudatory notice about her performance as Zara Carewe in a London evening paper had been written by no less a person than the Hon. Darcy himself. “Could you not recognize his style?” Mrs. Stourton- Chepe had inquired somewhat contemptuously. ‘We, all in the company, knew it ina moment. He has been try- ing to bribe the local critics to speak well of you by cham- pagne suppers; but frankly, my dear, they dare not praise you. J am sure you will not mind my saying that you had better distrust the genuineness of all favorable no- tices you may receive. Darcy Derrick is doing his ut- most to push you to the front, but, my dear Miss Knight, you have mistaken your vocation, and I don’t think it’s in the slightest degree probable that you will ever get an- other engagement worth taking. The agent, Whitlock, was in front at Brighton, and he said to me—but perhaps you would rather not hear?” “Please go on. It can’t be worse than what I have heard already.” , EOmMmiIcboo cS (G()