His Grace — page 222: what you’re looking at

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

216 | HIS GRACE. else. To be sure, it might be because there was such a thing as disinterested affection, although of course a fellow whose mind was so warped by unreasoning hatred of women as mine was wouldn’t believe it. He did not, he made haste to add, flatter himself that he had inspired any woman with sentiments of disinterested affection. “TI wouldn’t, if I were you,” I responded dryly. “Such an illusion as that would be liable to be rudely dispelled from one moment to another.” The idea of Miss St. George manifesting disinterested affection by taking up her abode upon a cinder-heap with the man of her choice was really a little bit too comic. Our conference with the lawyers had a somewhat so- bering effect upon Hurstbourne, who, I take it, did not want to be reduced to downright poverty, and who, notwithstanding his brave words, probably did not believe altogether in the imminence of such a melan- choly event. We agreed to walk home, and, as we paced along the Embankment, I talked to him with a seriousness which he professed himself able to appre- ciate. “Only, you know,” said he, “I can’t begin cutting things down to-morrow. Let’s get to the end of the season, and then we'll see. I suppose you won’t understand what I mean; but it’s a sort of point of honor with me not to cave in to Paul Gascoigne.” I confessed my utter inability to understand what Mr. Gascoigne had to do with his cousin’s annual expenditure ; whereupon Hurstbourne burst out laugh- ing and declared that it wasn’t a bit of good to argue with a man who was so beastly literal. Doubtless he “S (G(e) m Gomichboo