A Parisian Romance — page 143: what you’re looking at

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

134 A PARISIAN ROMANCE. “The Count de Fervieres!” she exclaimed, pas- sionately. “I refuse to accept it!” Magnificently beautiful she looked, as she stood with her figure drawn up to its fullest height, and her blue eyes ablaze with horrified indignation. Poor and insignificant looked the shriveled figure of the baron beside her. The two might have served as models for Venus, the goddess of beauty and her misshapen spouse. But his was the domi- nant spirit, as she had learned more than once to her cost. “What did you say?” he asked, in his softest, most insinuating tones. “1 refuse to accept it!” “Indeed! And why, may I ask?” There was something in the manner in which he asked this simple question that arrested her atten- tion and struck terror to her heart. Surely he was not going to insist upon her taking this money, which seemed to her almost like the price of shame. She had long since lost all illusions in regard to her husband, if indeed she had ever had any. Almost from the very day of their marriage he had shocked her sensibilities and outraged her principles. She knew that, if his mind were made up, no entreaties of hers could move him one iota. But she deter- mined to make a desperate appeal. “Timplore you,” she said, piteously, clasping her hands, “not to force me to take this money. Ido not wish it! Ido not wish it! Wearerich! We Eomicbooks.Go