The Price He Paid — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

18 : A DARK SPOT, “In reality, you owe it to our boat which struck the sand-bank just at the right time,” put in Gabri- elle. “Do you.remember our first meeting, George? To this day mamma believes that she was in deadly peril, and looks on you as her deliverer, because you brought us cleverly through the shallow water to land. She would hardly have consented else to receive such frequent visits from one bearing your plebeian name; but the man who has saved one’s life must be an exception, of course. If she did but . know that her hero has already made me a declara- tion of love!” The undisguised triumph expressed in the last words seemed to grate upon the young man. He fixed his eyes on her countenance with a scrutiniz- ing, anxious gaze. “Andif the baroness should hear of it, sooner or later, what would you do?” “Present you to her in all due form as my future lord and master,” declared Gabrielle, with comic sol- emnity. “There would be an explosion, of course; tears, reproaches, hysterics—mamma is a Capital hand at all these, but it comes to nothing. She invariably gives in at last, and I get my own way.” She said all this airily, carelessly, laughing gilee- fully as she spoke. The thought of a catastrophe -~ which would have filled any other maiden with alarm was, it appeared, positively diverting to the young Baroness von Harder. She had seated herself on the grassy mound, and taken off her straw hat. The sunbeams, which here and there pierced the thick, leafy canopy of the chestnut trees, played on her luxuriant fair hair and blooming face, whence a pair of great sparkling brown eyes looked merrily forth into the world. She seemed the embodied reflection of the landscape out yonder, sunny and light as herself. George looked at her witha singular mixture of vexation and tenderness. “Gabrielle, you treat all this as so much sport, and seem to have no idea of the troubles which men- ace us, of the battles we shall have to fight!” “Js the thought of battle alarming to you?” Eomicbooks (E(0)