Stella Rosevelt — page 362: what you’re looking at

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

356 “I HAVE BEEN MAD.” ‘Pardon me, you are grieving; is your trouble anything that I can help?” She sprang to her feet instantly and confronted him, her cheeks blazing hotly, her whole form trembling from the touch of his hand. | ‘‘Miss Richards!” he exclaimed, in surprise, as he recog- nized her, while involuntarily he recoiled from her, so unex- pected and disagreeable—in his present frame of mind—was this meeting. ‘‘T thought,” he added, ‘‘that you were in the ball-room enjoying yourself with the other merrymakers. She noticed the coldness of his tone, as well as his uncon- scious shrinking from her, and it cut her to the heart, while at the same time it aroused her anger. ‘‘Enjoying myself!” she repeated, passionately and unguard edly; ‘‘the evening is spoiled for me; everything is spoiled— the world and my life. ‘That mockery through which we have just passed has made me mzserable.”” It was strange, he thought, that they should both feel thus. ‘‘T regret that anything should have occurred to make you so unhappy,” he returned. ‘‘I hoped while you were the guest of my mother that nothing would transpire to mar the pleasure of any one. But,” he added, more cheerfully, ‘‘ you must not allow that farce to oppress you thus. I donot, as I have said , before, approve of making light of such serious things, and marriage, to me, seems like a sacred ordinance. But no harm was done, I trust; our friends were amused for a half-hour; and reaily, Miss Richards,’ he concluded, smilingly, ‘‘if, when you come to be married in earnest, you make as charming a bride as you did to-night, the happy man will be one to be envied. ” : “Don’t, Lord Carrol,” Josephine cried out, in a sharp tone of pain, and laying her hand appealingly on his arm; ‘‘ don? say such things to me!” Gomicbooks (E(@)