Ainslee's Magazine, February 1913 — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

THE POINT OF VIEW This latter was full of defense when she awoke. She had not closed an eye, but thought Miss Stella was enjoying “them statues” better without her— which was, indeed, true if she had guessed. Miss Rawson ate very little lunch- eon—the Russian did not appear—and immediately after it she was taken, as a treat, to see the Borghese Gardens by her uncle and aunt! It behoved her not to be tired by more sight-seeing, since her betrothed would arrive when they returned for tea, and would ex- pect her to be bright and on the alert to please him, Aunt Caroline felt. As for Stella, as that moment approached it seemed to her that the end of all joy had come. CHAPTER IV. The Reverend Eustace Medlicott, when the stains of travel had been re- moved from his thin person, came down to tea in the hall of the Grand Hotel with a distinct misgiving in his heart. He did not approve of it as a place of residence for his betrothed. Another and equally well-drained hostelry might have been found for the party, he thought, where such evidences of worldly occupations and amusements would not so forcibly strike the eye. Music with one’s meals savored of pa- ganism. He was still very emaciated with his Lenten fast. It took him un- til July generally to begin to pick up again; and he was tired with his jour- ney. Stella was not there to greet him —only the Aunt Caroline—and he felt a sense of injury creeping over him. She might have been in time. Nancy Ruggles, the bishop’s second daughter, had given him tea and ministered to his wants in a spirit of solicitous devo- tion every day since the Ebleys had left Exminster; but Nancy’s hair was not full of sunlight, nor did her complex- ion suggest cream and roses. Things which, to be sure, the Reverend Eustace Medlicott felt he ought not to dwell upon; they were fleshly lusts, should be discouraged. He had been convinced that celibacy and. 15 was the only road to salvation for a. priest until Stella Rawson’s fair young charms had unconsciously undermined this conviction. But even if he had been able to arrange his conscience to his liking upon the vital point, he felt he must fight bravely against allowing himself or his betrothed to get any pleasure out of the affair. It was bet- ter to marry than to burn—he had St. Paul’s authority for this—but when he felt emotion toward Stella because of her loveliness, he was afterward very uncomfortable in his thoughts, and it took him at least an hour to throw dust in his own eyes in regard to the na- ture of his desire for her, which he determined to think was only of the spirit. Love, for him, was no god to be exalted, but a too strong beast to be resisted, and every one of his rites was to be succumbed to shame- facedly and under protest. Thus did he criticize the scheme of his Creator, like many another before him. He sat now in the hall of the Grand Hotel, at Rome, feeling ill at ease, and expressed some mild disapproval of the surroundings to Mrs. Ebley, who fired up at once. She was secretly enjoying herself extremely, and allowed the drains to assume gigantic proportions in her reasons for their choice of abode. So there was nothing more to be said —and Stella, looking rather pale, pres- ently came down the steps from the cor- ridor where their lift was situated, and joined the group in the far corner of the large hall. She was so slender and fresh and graceful, and even in the week’s sight- seeing in Paris she seemed to have picked up a new air; though she wore the same gray Sunday dress her fiancé was accustomed to see at home, it ap- peared to be put’on differently, and she had altered the doing of her hair. There was no doubt about it, his fu- ture wife was a most delectable-look- ing creature; but these tendencies to- ward adornment of the person which he observed must be checked at once. They shook hands with decorous cor- diality, and Stella sat down demurely in the vacant chair. She felt as cold as Go 0)(0)(6) ANUC CS (F@)