I Forbid the Banns! — page 350: what you’re looking at

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

340 ‘“T FORBID THE BANNS!” which grows in the middle of Fool’s Paradise is among the least satisfying of the products of the vegetable kingdom. Perhaps, on the whole, the best way of diverting one’s thoughts from a catastrophe which one feels to be impend- ing is to plunge, as Julian Charlton did, into a crowd of men and women and cast all care and sense to the winds. He found himself once more in Mrs. Cyrus P. Bates’ eroup, and he laughed louder even than Mrs. Cyrus P. Bates at some jest of unspeakable silliness. He got tothe side of a young woman who had obtained a reputation in society for being ill-treated by her husband, and who was, consequently, treated with such lavish kindness by other men—anxious, no doubt, to counterbalance the domestic brutality of which she was a victim—that it was surpris- ing the husband did not complete his villainy by bringing her into the divorce court. Julian Charlton plunged with her. He took herhand and looked into the center of those black ovals where her eyes were situated. Did she not yearn for sympathy, he asked her. She returned his pres- sure, and, after an eloquent pause, wondered where Ene could have an ice. “ Great Heavens! is it come tothat ?” he cried. “O Heavens ! that men should be such brutes ! ”’ She looked at him and sighed. “I never complain,” she murmured. “It is my lot. The sooner it’s over, the sooner to sleep, We must be resigned.”’ “Poor child! Poor child!’? he murmured. “ You are all unmeet for a wife. You are not a woman—you are a flower—in everything but the flower’s frailty.” “You are dangerous,’’ she whispered. ‘“‘T know it,” he answered. ‘“ For God’s sake don’t look at me like that. You do not know what it is to havea strong man’s soul in your keeping.” (€(0) CORMIELIOYOLKS