Richard Forrest, Bachelor — page 234: what you’re looking at

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

EXONERATED. ) 225 ‘You are provokingly bewildering and I can make neither head nor tail out of this,’’ said Arthur, atlast. ‘‘But, as you are evidently in earnest and are generally pretty reasonable in your demands, I shall not refuse you. You have completely mystified me.”’ ‘Then the sooner you start in the quicker your own curi- osity with be gratified,’’ uttered Dick. He was smoking now, and the fragrance of his weed filled the little room. ‘Tf I didn’t know that all the soreness (provided your heart ever was really wounded) had long since been healed, I wouldn’t ask this of you,’’ he proceeded. ‘‘No doubt, though looking back to those days, you wonder how you ever could have conceived yourself enamored of her.’’ ‘‘That’s the solemn fact; I do wonder at my own folly.”’ “Sstill——”’ ‘Still, until I discovered her true character, I certainly fancied myself desperately in love with Florence.’’ ‘*So it was a case of a shattered idol?’’ asked Dick, mus- ingly. ‘‘T presume one might so nominate it,’’ admitted Arthur. Then taking a seat opposite Dick, he continued, with some- thing like a smile: ‘‘ You see, it was this way: When Dolly introduced me to her I thought her out and away the pret- tiest bit of femininity I had run across that winter, and I wondered how the duse the frivolous Dolly had ever gotten hold of her. She seemed just the opposite of Dolly, too— quiet, reserved, and extremely lady-like. Well, I suppose I was soft, and Dolly was clever enough to soon find it out. She cracked the girl up to the skies, told me what a model wife she would make for some lucky fellow, and, in short, made use of all the ways and means known to widows to insnare me in the toils of the unsophisticated country GOmMmIiIchbookssco im