In doing this
she was brought absolutely face to face with the duke, so that each
could not but look full at the other. "I beg your pardon," said the
duke. They were the only words that had ever passed between them,
nor have they spoken to each other since; but simple as they were,
accompanied by the little by-play of the speakers, they gave rise
to a considerable amount of ferment in the fashionable world. Lady
Lufton, as she retreated back on to Dr. Easyman, curtsied low; she
curtsied low and slowly, and with a haughty arrangement of her
drapery that was all her own; but the curtsy, though it was eloquent,
did not say half so much,--did not reprobate the habitual iniquities
of the duke with a voice nearly as potent as that which was expressed
in the gradual fall of her eye and the gradual pressure of her lips.
When she commenced her curtsy she was looking full in her foe's face.
By the time that she had completed it her eyes were turned upon the
ground, but there was an ineffable amount of scorn expressed in the
lines of her month. She spoke no word, and retreated, as modest
virtue and feminine weakness must ever retreat, before barefaced vice
and virile power; but nevertheless she was held by all the world
to have had the best of the encounter.
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