The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

738 “ Mile. le Fevre,’ she returned, with a scorching glance that should have consumed him. But it did not. To him she looked like a fragile, temperamental child, intent upon playing young lady. For the instant he forgot his troubles and smiled broadly at her quaint and haughty demeanor: “Mlle. le Fevre, will you step in- side?’’ he requested punctiliously. The girl lifted her eyes, and, even while she bit her lip in vexation, she read the genuine kindness that was so large a part of Radford’s nature. ra Truly, monsieur, | am not a leetle girl,” she assured him. ‘ I am twenty years old.” It is not always the sympathy we expect,that touches us so deeply that our feelings swing like resounding bells in a wonderful harmony of ten- derness. It is often the chance mani- festation of a gentle spirit that reaches the dead chambers of the stricken heart. So Natalie le Fevre’s voice, low and sweet, with its faint tinge of accent quaintly coloring it, swept into Ted’s ears, tiently kind. . Ted forgot that his mother had es- caped from the falling fortunes of their house, leaving him alone. He forgot that he was about to do that which would rob him of his fiancée. He just remembered that here was a little creature whose consideration and gentleness had traveled surely to his mind and heart and cheered him. “ Adieu, Mile. le Fevre!”’ he said very softly as she stepped from the car. “ Adieu, monsieur!”’ she replied, with a gleaming look from her big eyes that swam brilliantly in Ted’s as he sent the car down. When he reached the first floor he saw Williams going toward the front door. “My car here, Williams?” * T’ll see; sir. the bell.”’ forgivingly reproachful, so pa~ I was just answering THE ARGOSY. Ted paused in the obscurity of the hall. Walliams opened the door. Mr. Hugo Barrington, the bridegroom of barely three hours, entered the house. CHAPTER. IV. THE CALI OF ARIZONA. RaApFORD stood for a long moment, dazed by the unexpected appearance of the bridegroom. Then he hurried toward him. “Anything wrong with mother?’’ he asked anxiously, thinking of that as the only reason for the return of Mr. Barrington. “ Nothing. I came back on an er- rand for her,’ Barrington said quietly. ‘Where is she?” Ted inquired. “ At the Ritz in my apartment. We had planned to stop there for lunch before we motored out to Cressymere. She remembered something she had forgotten, so I turned errand-boy.” Radford regarded his new step- father with frank curiosity. He could not imagine that his mother had for- gotten anything so vital to her need or pleasure that she must have it be- fore it might be sent to the country to her. He wondered if this Satiowlante steel-and-stone combination of a man had not discovered his own and sole weak-and-soft spot since he came into the circle of his mother’s influence. The idea amused him enough to bring the light into his blue eyes. “You might have phoned. I could have brought it down,” Ted observed. “ [—well, to be quite honest, neither of us thought of that,” Barrington confessed with a shamefaced frank- ness that proved to Ted that he had been right in his conclusion. There was something comforting in the embarrassment of Mr. Barrington. It made him seem less a creature of solemn importance, the arbiter of his fate in a way, and more human, for he was obviously bored at the realiza- tion and the observation by another COMME O© S (E@)