His Grace — page 214: what you’re looking at

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

208 - HIS GRACE. “ How do you know that ?” I inquired. “T have eyes and ears; I have seen her with him and heard a good deal of what she has said to him. Like other girls, she thinks it a fine thing to have cap- tivated a duke; but I really don’t believe that she would marry him, even if he were to propose to her. It is only fair to Nora to say that I have always recog- nized her keen sense of right and wrong.” “YT wish,” I remarked, “that yours were equally keen. It is only fair to myself to say that I consider you a most immoral old lady.” “Very well,” returned Lady Deverell, with a short laugh ; “under the circumstances, you are entitled to be rude, and we won’t quarrel over it. I know you don’t like me, and, frankly speaking, I don’t much like you; still Iam not quite so bad as you suppose. I wouldn’t place Nora’s happiness in jeopardy even for the sake of that tiresome and perverse girl Leila; I have profited by the course of events, that is all.” I had never liked Lady Deverell so well as I did at that moment. She was really an immoral old lady; but her fighting instincts were those of the good old race to which she belonged, and if she could only have made up her mind to cast aside all affectation of being religious she probably would not have been a worse member of the community than other dowagers. We concluded a sort of armed truce, and she begged me not to make mischief by repeating to Nora a frag- ment of conversation which had never been intended to reach my ears. I thought it unnecessary to men- tion that the screen which had concealed me at the time had likewise concealed my sister. I was walking down St. James’s Street, on my way GOomichbooks (E(0) m