Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 53: what you’re looking at

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

HER ROYAL LOVER. 45 trump cards in the game of his wife, who, free, would not fail to meet her adorer; this accursed king, who, without doubt, would find himself as usual on her road. Alone, inhaling with delight the spring air all im- pregnated with the odor of the flowering chestnuts, the hedges of white hawthorn and wild roses, she would allow herself to be borne along by the rapid strides of her horse, far from him, far from their children; while he, and by his own fault, remained alone munching his anger in this room where he was suffocating. The constraint which he imposed on himself ren- dered him more furious, for his blind jealousy showed him a thousand chimeras, some more impos- sible than others; at last, no longer containing him- self, he threw aside passionately the dispatches to which he was about to respond; there remained to him still more time than he required for the evening courier, and, giving orders to saddle “ Vengeance” immediately, his superb Arabian horse, in less than a quarter of an hour, without being followed by any - one, not even a groom, he rode in the direction of a little woods where he knew Najeska Ivanowna was in the habit of riding, mounted on “ Reverie,” a mag- nificent English mare. The morning is radiant. The sky, of a pale tor- quoise blue, is cloudless. _When he arrives in the solitude of the forest, the flocks of birds throw their light trills from branch to branch. Upon the petals of the little wild-wood flowers, the dew sparkles like the facets of diamonds. The sod is enameled with daisies and buttercups; the wild strawberry and the violet mingle together under the taller plants. A delicious odor exhales from the vernal earth, Even (€(0) mm C JOO ES (E(0)