Thrice Lost, Thrice Won — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

: be . é és Pi a ’ aw i & o i 5 A ; : aa ue vy, ," 4 ’ : "J ¢ he TIO Miss De Montreuil Decides. igh) fragmemts of her letters contemptuously away, and bent e face above the tropical blossoms. | ‘“‘Hle dines here to-day?” she said. “Yes. He haunts this house like a shadow of late. All’s - not lost that’s in danger, Leonie. The wife of old Ruther- ford, the millionaire, will be a lady to be envied.” — “Ah, but he is old Rutherford,” Leonie said, plaintively, “and I don’t like the old men.” | “Of course not; but, you see; unfortunately one can’t have everything in this lower world. If one likes unlimited dia- monds and pocket- -money, a box at the opera, the best metro- politan society, a villa in the Highlands, a cottage on the Hudson, a brown-stone palace on Fifth avenue, one must be content to endure a few drawbacks. If one prefers an artist, young, handsome, clever, penniless, a shabby tenement on the east side, print dresses, and a dinner of hash and weak tea at high noon, why one can have that, too. Only, if our friends cut us dead, and love flies out of the window after the honey- moon, and our beauty withers, and we find ourselves an object of compassion to gods and men, we have no right to complain. We have made our own election, and must abide by it.” ‘There was blank silence. Miss De Montreuil was looking ~ steadfastly out of the window. Mrs. Manners a second time glaneed at her watch. “Haltf-past. six. Really, Leonie, your maid qill not have time to do herself justice this evening. I will go and send her up at onee. Look your prettiest, and wear Mr. Ruther- ford’s flowers, and be as sensible when he takes you in to dinner as it is the nature of eighteen to be. For the present, adieu !” “ Mrs. Manners tripped lightly away, and sent Mlle. -Aglae f upstairs at once. She was very fond of her pretty guest, and the rich Rutherford was a remote connection of her own. “Tl hope she’ll have sense,” she thought, as she sailed into the drawing-room to receive her guests. “I hope she won’t be silly and sentimental. And I don’t think she will.” The dinner-bell was clanging forth its summons as ‘Miss De Montreuil floated—-she always floated—into the gas-lit drawing-room. | Very beautiful she looked in her pink silk dinner dress— ~— the color of strawberry ice, with pearls in, her rich black — hair, and eyes like ebon stars. A cluster of Mr. Rutherford’s waxed flowers nestled amid the foamy lace of her corsage, and ae Rutherford’s old eyes absolutely lit up as he recognized them. : He came toward her, and took possession at once, as one having the right—a short, stout, red-faced old man of sixty, with a protruding under lip and two or three double chins. Mi, comicbooks.com |