Richard Forrest, Bachelor — page 80: what you’re looking at

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

“LOOKS LIKE FATE.” } 71 Miss Clayton,’’ explained Arthur. ‘‘There are a hundred things she might need, and the old man’s pretty sick.’’ ‘*Oh,’’ uttered Dick, ‘‘then you weren’t waiting to be in- vited to dinner?’’ ‘‘How you do rattle on, Dick!”’ ‘‘Not at all, my dear boy; you acted as though you were moon-struck, positively. ’’ ‘‘Moon-struck,’’ repeated Arthur. ‘'You’re too absurd.’’ “Yes, you never took your eyes off Miss Clayton one blessed second while you were in the house. Can’t say I blame you, either,’’ stopping to light a cigarette; ‘‘she’s a dused,’’ puff, puff, ‘‘handsome woman.”’ ‘Really ?”’ ‘Oh, you did not notice her particularly, then?’’ said Dick, dryly. ‘‘Well, I did, and I tell you she’s a beauty. To think, Arthur, she is the girl you ran away to escape two years ago. Had you any idea she was like this?”’ ‘‘No, I did not take the trouble to ask any questions about her at all. The facts were enough to make me avoid her, had she been Venus herself. But this is a singular meet- ing—being rushed into her presence as it were nolens volens.’’ ‘‘T.ooks like fate,’’ remarked Forrest. “T think it looks like rain,’’ returned Arthur, refusing to reply to his friend’s observation, “‘and I wish I had brought an umbrella instead of a stick. By the way, which way are you going? Club?”’ “Yes, all the same, though,’’ persisted Dick, *‘you were the biggest loser in that operation. ’’ ‘‘How do you know that?’’ asked Arthur, stiffly. “‘Beauty isn’t everything. She may have a bad temper. “T’d take my chances on that.”’ Gomichbookssco