Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 139: what you’re looking at

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

HER ROYAL LOVER. 131 A profound sentiment of bitterness was perceptible in the voice of the young woman. Alas! she knew, only too well, how many enemies her beauty and the wealth of her husband, had created among women, and even among men, especially among those, who, provoked by their repulsed homages, had wished to avenge themselves, by endeavoring to attack her in her life, to abase her in her reputa- tion. Although young, she had paid to know how many of those fables a venomous tongue had quickly invented—fables, which skillfully whispered, pene- trate everywhere, infectious miasma, casting thus to the ban of society, a woman of a pure and un- blemished reputation! How many times had she been wounded in her pride, in her dignity, without having deserved any other blame than that of an innocent inexperience which enters, head foremost, in the snares with which the demon of evil sur- rounds it! In spite of some immaterial indiscretions, of no consequence save for those who had advantageously used them, Najeska Ivanowna had remained the bravest of little women, guarding faithfully her honest principles, and the oaths sworn before the altar. Did not the king remark the poignant bitter- ness which, like a black and heavy cloud, came suddenly to obscure this young and lovely brow? or did he intentionally pursue the conversation? He still continued, thus: “If you have need of a defender! But, can a beauty like yours dispense with one? Are you igno- rant, then, of the rage which it excites in the hearts of other women?” “Then, sire, if before having seen me, you have Eomichbooks:.com