What Will He Do with It — Volume 03 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
page 96 of 146 (65%)
page 96 of 146 (65%)
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your return to England?"
"Of course. That's what brought me over. I imagined the man would rejoice at what I told him, open his pursestrings, lavish blessings and bank-notes. And the brute would not even believe me; all because--" "Because you had sold the right to be believed before. I told you, when I took the child, that you would never succeed there, that--I would never encourage you in the attempt. But you had sold the future as you sold your past,--too cheaply, it seems, Jasper." "Too cheaply, indeed. Who could ever have supposed that I should have been fobbed off with such a pittance?" "Who, indeed, Jasper! You were made to spend fortunes, and call them pittances when spent, Jasper! You should have been a prince, Jasper; such princely tastes! Trinkets and dress, horses and dice, and plenty of ladies to look and die! Such princely spirit too! bounding all return for loyal sacrifice to the honour you vouchsafed in accepting it!" Uttering this embittered irony, which nevertheless seemed rather to please than to offend her guest, she kept moving about the room, and (whether from some drawer in the furniture, or from her own person, Losely's careless eye did not observe) she suddenly drew forth a miniature, and, placing it before him, exclaimed, "Ah, but you are altered from those days; see what you then were!" Losely's gaze, thus abruptly invited, fixed itself on the effigies of a youth eminently handsome, and of that kind of beauty which, without being effeminate, approaches to the fineness and brilliancy of the female |
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