Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 80: what you’re looking at

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

B70 It was still early and Elsie was not yet about. Midge sent her ayah out of her bedroom. She had to be alone. On a couch was spread her wedding gown —a dream of white and silver and pearls. And the lace veil was on the back of a chair, and on the carpet were her little silver shoes. And on her dressing table was the open case with the splendid pearls. Midge turned her back on the sheen of satin and silver and the film of lace. She went to the window and looked out at the angry, sullen sky. Then she dropped on her knees, her head buried in her arms, the little golden amulet held tightly in her hand. CHAPTER XIil. “6 SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED.” +e ARLING, you look simply too lovely - for words!” Elsie Inglis stood with clasped hands, surveying Midge clothed in her wed- ding gown. “ You’re awfully white,” she added, “ but a bride is allowed to be pale. You always took things so seriously, Midge. That Honiton lace on your dark hair is just per- fect. And now I must fasten the pearls on for you! Mercy, what gorgeous things!” She lifted the three-stranded necklace from its white velvet bed. ‘‘ The weight of them, and the glorious pinky sheen! You are a lucky girl!” She snapped the emerald and diamond clasp, and fastened the little safety chain. ‘“Isn’t Sir John a perfectly won- derful man?” “ He is,” said Midge. “And the life he'll give you—simply everything you want. I never saw such devotion. Won’t he now, Midge, give you everything you want?” “ Everything I want,” said Midge in a lower voice. Everything she wanted! Her heart was like a stone in her breast. What did Elsie mean by everything she wanted? She knew, of course. Clothes, jewels, big houses, luxurious travel, agreeable friends, a life both gay and important, and without a single material care. They were good ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. things all, things she herself had valued and looked forward to before—before that day when she rode up the Banzat Pass alone. Added to Sir John’s devotion and goodness, these things might well make up an almost ideal life. But Midge did not want them now. She wanted the impossible, the unattainable— the moon. An hour ago she had locked the little golden amulet away in her de- spatch box. An hour ago she had wiped the tears of despair from her face and sworn to herself that she would put the White Horseman out of her mind and heart for ever and make the good Sir John the kind of wife he expected her to be. But the vow was one of those that cannot be kept, and this knowledge stirred terror in her soul. Forces beyond her control were work- ing in her, had, indeed, taken possession of her. She could no more forget the White Horseman than she could add an inch to her small stature. So it meant em- barking on the life of an actress: morning, noon and night—everlastingly—playing a part. Elsie chattered on, while Midge’s little brown ayah brought the silver tissue train, sewn with pearls along its edge, and wished to attach it by its pearl tassels to her mist- ress’s shoulders. But Midge stopped her. There was heaps of time. ‘Tt’s ridiculously early,” she said to her friend. “ Muratta couldn’t wait.’’ And she smiled affectionately into the ayah’s beady, adoring eyes. “Now I’m all ready but the train, I think I’ll sit down for a little while.” “ Righto,” said Elsie, admiring her own egrayish-blue frock in a tall pier glass, and giving a touch to the great soft feather that drooped over her wonderful golden hair. “‘7’ll have a cigarette. As you say, there’s loads of time. Sir John said he would ring up five minutes before he left for the cathe- dral and that would give us another five minutes before we need start. By the way, I forgot to tell you I had a note from Mr. Drake.” “ Did you?” responded Midge, taking up a hand mirror and staring hard at the re- flection of her face. “Ves, dear, an answer to my card for Oo Ccomicbooks CO