Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 394: what you’re looking at

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

KARL AND COUNTESS OF DESBOROUGH 377 with her husband, the evening before; and, being wearied with travelling, she had risen later than usual. Thus was it that, although the hour had already arrived when visitors might be expected, she was still in her elegant negligee, and indeed experienced that lassitude which subdued all inclination to go through the tedious ceremony of the toilet. The timepiece on the mantel had struck two, when the door slowly opened, and the Earl of Desborough entered the room. We have already said that he was a fine, handsome per- son; we may add that his demeanour was pleasant, his conversation agreeable, and his manners affable and gracious. Even to those whom he looked upon as his inferiors, he exhibited not the pride and hauteur which usually charac- terize the English aristocracy; but he possessed a calm dignity, which circumstances might subdue into an air of conciliation and encouragement calculated to relieve the difiident of all awkwardness or embarrassment in his pres- ence. In politics he was as liberal as a peer dared be in those times or as a British nobleman ever possibly could be; and: a naturally generous disposition rendered him charitable and bounteous toward those who made their sufferings known to him. Altogether, he was a man whom, to outward appearances, Eleanor might have tutored her heart to love; and, judging in the same superficial way, such an alliance seemed fully and completely adapted to ensure her happiness. But it was not so; and a cold, imperceptible tremor swept over her frame the instant that the earl appeared upon the threshold of the apartment. ‘‘ Pardon me if I intrude, Eleanor,’ he said, in a somewhat mournful voice, and speaking in a tone of embarrassment, not with the frank and noble confidence of a husband. “I inquired if you were alone before I ventured thus to break upon your privacy.” ‘Has not your lordship the right to visit me at your own good pleasure?’”’ asked the countess, in a cold tone and with a marked emphasis upon the word printed in italics. “Oh, the right — wherefore do you speak to me with such bitter, painfully significant sarcasm?” exclaimed the earl, closing the door and advancing toward her. ‘ Do you not think, Eleanor, that my own thoughts, my own GOmMmiiGcsdoo CS (C©)