The Opposite House: A Novel — page 270: what you’re looking at

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

Lhe Opposite Flouse. 265 consider it ridiculous—absurd. And here these mis- chievous eyes look at me as though they wanted to laugh at my discomfiture! Deuce take them !’’ The heir of Raveneck tore the picture of his lost love, and threw himself back among the cushions. ““Come, we'll forget!” he grumbled. His box of candied fruit awakened other thoughts, and, opening it, he thoughtfully bit into a tempting apricot. But either, for the first time, the fruit was poor, or it was his own mood—at any rate, the beautiful apricot tasted bitter. Meanwhile Marie von Rotterswyl was standing in her tower-room, pressing her burning brow against the panes. Her temples beat and throbbed so wildly, and her little heart seemed as if it were ready to burst its narrow confines and fly exulting- ly to meet “him.” The room was so sultry, so oppressive. She opened the door and ran down into the garden,into the wide, surging sea of the fresh spring air, beneath the radiant sky, past the marble statues, by the yew hedge, till at last she stood by the little pond. How still it was here! The turf was glittering with the first green of May; fresh, waving blades of grass, amid which bloomed the white stars of the daisy and early primroses. Hidden far be- neath, too, were the sweet violets, which sent forth their fragrance on the soft breeze to greet her. Comicbooks.c©