Geoffrey's Victory by Mrs Georgie Sheldon — page 62: what you’re looking at

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

58 MRS. BREVORT’S RECEPTION. same vein; ‘‘but you did not say who that young lady is who accompanies them,” he concluded, as if his attention had but just been drawn toward her. “No, I do not .know myself; she isa stranger, buta very lovely one, is she not? Really, I do not believe there is another lady in the room so beautiful. Come, I havea curiosity to know who she is myself, and we will beg Mrs. Loring for an introduction.” Thus Everet Mapleson managed to secure a formal in- troduction to the Lorings and Gladys through one of the Jeaders of New York society. He knew that there could be no excepticns taken to any one whom Mrs. Vanderwater vouched for, and there- fore the young girl would have no excuse for avoiding xa on the score of not having been properly presented to im. But she received him very graciously, even referring in a laughing way to their previous meeting earlier in the day, thus showing him she would not have been the least bit prudish about recognizing him, even without Mrs. Vanderwater’s reassuring presence. He soon after searched out his friend Al, whom he presented to Miss Loring, and then left him to be enter- tained by her while he devoted himself exclusively to Gladys. They danced together several times, and he managed to secure her company during supper, while afterward they had a social chat in Mrs. Brevort’s charming little pic- ture-gallery, where there were several works of rare value. But the only picture which Everet Mapleson seemed to consider worthy of his regard was an exquisite face, framed in lustrous brown hair, with the bluest eyes that he had ever seen, and whose every expression only served to wind the silken chain of his bondage, the chain of love, more closely about him. Gladvs, on her part, was strangely moved by the young man’s presence. Tle was Geoffrey and yet he was not. Several times she almost forgot herself and was on the point of addressing him in the old familiar way which she had always adopted toward her father’s protege, and only restrained herself in season to prevent herself from ap- pearing bold and forward. Everet Mapleson found her eyes fixed upon him with great earnestness several times, and he knew that she Comicloooks.€