Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 209: what you’re looking at

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

192 THE COURT OF LONDON \ terms, the generous fervour of her reliance and the in- genuous warmth of her confidence in respect to Lord Flori- mel received such an instantaneous shock that she gazed upon him with the freezing hauteur of disdain and con- tempt, and also with the steadfastness of surprise at that abrupt and unexpected manifestation of his intense self- ishness. ‘You do not love me, my lord,’ she at length observed, in a tone indicative of profound disappointment; “ nor do you even entertain the slightest particle of friendship toward me.”’ ‘Unkind Pauline! wherefore thus plant a dagger in my heart? ’’ demanded Florimel. ‘“T have been deceived in you — cruelly deceived,” re- sumed the maiden, drawing back her chair a few paces, and waving her hand imperiously to forbid the nobleman from daring to approach her. Then, again wrapping her mantle closely around her, she said, ‘‘ J had already forgotten the treachery with which our interview this night commenced on your side, because the discovery of that perfidious con- duct was succeeded by an interval of apparent generosity on your part. Yes, I was willing to pardon the behaviour which, at one time in the course of these long hours that we have passed together, I stigmatized as black and cowardly; I was willing to forget it, on account of the contrition that your lordship seemed to manifest. And, oh, I now indeed perceive,” she added, bitterly, “ that I am passing from a state of complete innocence, with regard to the world, into the novitiate of experience, — and the first fruits of this new study are sour enough, I can assure you! I thought to trust you as a friend, to confide in you as — ag —— 99 And here her voice became suddenly choked with emotions. ‘“ As a lover — as a husband!” Lord Florimel hastened to add. ‘ Oh, do not lose all confidence in me, my adored one,” he continued, speaking from the depths of a heart which remorse had again touched; for there was something in the dignified reproaches of Pauline that overawed the youthful libertine and compelled him to gaze upon his own selfishness in all its most ghastly and repulsive shades. “Let me be candid with you, Lord Florimel,” said | Pauline, who had herself undergone such a variety oi COMnNIeEooolKS (E(0) m