The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story — page 73: what you’re looking at

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

62 THE EVIL GENIUS. cunning of the devil. There is a serious reason for controlling yourself.” He spoke so earnestly that he startled her. ‘‘ Are you angry with me?” she.asked. ‘‘ Angry! Does the manlive who could be angry with you?” ‘‘It might be better for both of us if you were angry with me. I have tried to control myself; I will try again. Oh, if you only knew what I suffer when Mrs. Linley is kind to me!” He persisted in trying to rouse her toa sense of the danger that threatened them while the visitors remained in the house, ‘‘In afew days, Sydney, there will be no more need for the deceit that is now forced on us. Till that time comes, remem- ber—Mrs. Presty suspects us.” Kitty ran back to them with her hands full of daisies before they could say more. ‘‘There is you nosegay, papa. No: I don’t want you to thank me—I want to know what present you are going to give me.” Her father’s mind was preoccupied; he looked at her absently. The child’s sense of her own importance was wounded; she ap- pealed to her governess. ‘‘ Would you believe it?” she asked. ‘¢Papa has forgotten that next Tuesday is my birthday!” ‘““Very well, Kitty; I must pay the penalty of forgetting. What present would you like to have ?” ‘*T want a doll’s perambulator.” ‘‘Ha! In my time we were satisfied with a doll.” They all three looked round! Another person had suddenly joined in the talk. There was.no mistaking the person’s voice: rs. Presty appeared among the trees, taking a walk in the park. Had she heard what Linley and the governess had said to each other while Kitty was gathering daisies? ‘‘ Quite a domestic scene!” the sly old lady remarked. ‘‘ Papa, looking like a saint in a picture, with flowers in his hand. Papa’s spoilt child always wanting something, and always get- ting it. And papa’s governess, so sweetly fresh and pretty that I should certainly fall in love with her, if I had the advantage of being a man. You have no doubt remarked, Herbert—I think I hear the bell; shall we go to lunch ?—you have no doubt, I say, remarked what curiously opposite styles Catherine and Miss Westerfield present; so charming, and yet such complete con- trasts. I wonder whether they occasionally envy each other’s good looks? Doesmy daughter ever regret that she is not Miss Westerfield? And do you, my dear, sometimes wish you were — Mrs. Linley ?” ‘‘ While we are about it, let me put a third question,” Linley interposed. ‘‘ Are you ever aware of it yourself, Mrs. Presty, when you are talking nonsense ?” He was angry, and he showed it in that feeblereply: Sydney felt the implied insult offered to her in another way. It roused her to the exercise of self-control as nothing had roused her yet. She ignored Mrs. Presty’s irony with acomposure worthy of Mrs. Presty herself. ‘‘ Where is the woman,” she said, ‘‘ who could not wish to be as beautiful as Mrs. Linley—and as good ?” “Thank you, my dear, for a compliment to my daughter: @ EONNICLOOKS ,eO