Stella Rosevelt — page 360: what you’re looking at

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

354 ' “7 HAVE BEEN MAD.” ‘Thanks, no. I shall do very well,” she answered, con- strainedly. And then, with another bow, he excused himself and left her. A convulsive sob broke from the girl’s lips as she watched him pass down the long room and out ata lower door; then she, too, arose and glided through the window near which she had been sitting. She sped along the wide piazza until she came to the end, where a flight of steps led down to a little arbor, or cluster of small trees which inclosed a great piece of statuary. She fled within it, and sinking down upon the granite base which supported the marble group, she gave vent to her misery in a burst of passionate tears. Lord Carrol, too, as he passed out of the ball-room, was more deeply moved than he would have liked to betray, and not very well pleased either with the part he had been com- pelled to play so much against his inclination. : Had his companion been any other than Josephine, perhaps he would have felt differently ; but he could not forget that he had once been represented as her lover, and something in her manner to-night warned him that she would not have regretted it had that farce been a dona fide marriage service instead, and he was exceedingly annoyed over the affair. He met his mother as he was going through a hall, and she detained him by gently laying her hand upon his arm. ‘(Has anything disturbed you?” she asked, looking up into his clouded face. ‘‘No, mother; nothing but that farce which has just been enacted. Ido not like such things; they seem too much like sacrilege,” he returned. ‘‘Neither do I like them, Archie,” she said, gravely. ‘‘ We have no right to make light of any subject so serious as mar- riage; but Minnie is a wild, thoughtless girl, intent only on the excitement of the moment, and did not stop to consider. I ~ Eomilcbooks: