The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 46: what you’re looking at

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

30 THE COURT OF LONDON “You have not breathed a word to your mistress? ”’ he said, in a hurried whisper. ‘No, my lord, not a word,” she replied, with a singularly wicked and roguish look. ‘‘ But you deserve that I should have shown you no mercy after your rude treatment.” ‘I know you will pardon me, pretty Gertrude,” he said. ‘ But why would you not speak to me just now on the landing? ”’ ‘‘ Why, my lord!’ echoed the abigail; ‘‘ because I heard other footsteps upon the stairs, — at least I thought so, — and likewise because I was afraid her ladyship would be angry with me for staying out so late. I was ordered to be home by half-past ten, and it was after eleven when I got back. The carriage drove up to the door just as I was descending the area steps.” ‘And where had you been, Gertrude? ” inquired the earl, thinking that the lady’s-maid was not so cruel, after all, inasmuch as she now conversed with tolerable freedom and apparent good-humour. ‘‘T passed the evening with my parents, my lord,’”’ she replied, looking, however, as if she felt annoyed by the question; “‘ and it was with the permission of her ladyship,”’ she added, pointedly. ‘Which is as much as to say that I have no right to inquire into your Movements,’ observed the nobleman, affecting to smile. ‘‘ Come, tell me candidly, are you very, very angry with me for my conduct of this evening? ”’ ‘“‘ Let me go, my lord, and I will tell you,” said Gertrude. ‘““ Now, then, you are free,’’ observed the earl, as he let go his grasp on her arm. The lady’s-maid flung another look of unspeakable arch- ness upon him, and flitted down the stairs with the speed and lightness of a spirit. | “The little minx!’’ muttered Curzon to himself. ‘ But she is not quite such a prude, after all, and she shall yet be mine.” The little interview with the lady’s-maid, being of a more satisfactory nature than his two former attempts to engage her in conversation, put the nobleman into a somewhat better humour, especially as he had received from her lips the assurance that his conduct was not reported to his wife. For, although he had not on previous occasions been equally EORNICLOOOKSAC