His Grace — page 198: what you’re looking at

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

592 HIS GRACE. the world, unless it’s your sister. Miss St. George is about as good as they make them—in an ordinary way of speaking. Besides, I haven’t asked her to marry me yet; and I don’t see why you should take it for granted that she will jump down my throat if I ever do.” I by no means took that for granted; on the con- trary, I believed Miss St. George to be far too wide awake to unite her fortunes with those of a man who had hopelessly compromised hisown. What I did take for granted was that she would end by marrying Paul Gascoigne ; though it seemed likely enough that she would amuse herself with Hurstbourne during the season—perhaps also utilize him as a stalking-horse. It may be that, as time went on, I should in some degree have modified my ideas respecting her, had I seen her and Hurstbourne together more frequently than I did. Afterwards I heard from many people that her conduct had placed the fact of her being deeply smitten with him almost beyond a doubt, and indeed I suppose that the coldest and most calculating of women is not wholly exempt from the passions of love and jealousy. Miss St. George—so I was sub- sequently informed—soon became violently jealous of my sister, who of course accompanied her and Lady Deverell to the houses which Hurstbourne was in the > habit of frequenting and whose intimacy with the duke was fostered and encouraged in every way by her chaperon. Mr. Gascoigne, meanwhile, was not less violently jealous of his cousin; so that altogether it must have been an amusing little comedy for those who were not personally interested in it to watch. I myself did not watch it, because I was only invited to very Eomichoo cS (E(0) m