Sealed Lips — page 265: what you’re looking at

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

SEALED LIPS. 257 she had not had the courage to forget the dream for the reality, nor the glory of sacrificing her future for the dream. Was it not time to be cured, and what remedy could save her better than the life of luxury and excitement that was offered her? At last two things determined her resolution—the fear of being ridiculous in Patrice’s eyes and the ardent desire of freeing herself of this fortune of which every farthing was a souvenir of the past. During the first spring’days that followed Gode- froid’s death, Serge learned from his fiancee that his happiness should not longer be delayed. They wished to keep it a secret as muchas possible, to celebrate the ceremony at Pomeyras, and leave im- mediately for St. Petersburg, where great festivities would greet the new princess. A reporter, very well informed—doubtless, by Madame Sauval— baffled this desire for silence in a sensational article which awoke the echoes of the press. Soon this news, that they wished to conceal, became the sen- sation of the day. One evening at the opera, in the directors’ box, some one seriously advised the reproduction of “Constantin,” on the score of gen- eral curiosity. “T would like nothing better,” repliea the man- ager, who well knew his Paris, “if the princess would assume her role. We should make money.” As to the “Filets de Vulcain,” it had never com- pletely disappeared from the stage, but it now at- tracted crowds, Eomichooksn