The Argosy — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

246 THE ARGOSY. them. Tell me, what in God’s name have I to do with fortune, madam ? Have I brains? Assuredly not, or the Jews would have left me my money. Have I influence? Yes, the influence of those who are scheming to get me out of the country because of the disgrace. Have I friends * She cut me short with a word. : ‘“Ves,’’ she said, ‘‘since you are the friend of Isabella de Gavarnie. I am right to say that, Captain Falconer? ”’ We were face to face now, for she had risen from her seat, and stood with her hand laid very prettily upon my arm again. I read in her eyes some- thing’ more than sympathy ; the touch of her soft fingers made my heart leap. ‘‘Oh, madam,’’ I exclaimed, ‘‘ what is the friendship of a ruined man worth to you?”’ ‘Tf it should be worth all?’’ she answered quickly, betraying an excite- ment as astonishing as it was unlooked for. ‘‘If it should mean happiness, love, the things which make a womaun’s life; if it should mean that to me— your friendship, would you give it then, Captain Falconer ?’’ I bent down and kissed her hand. ‘‘A superb actress,’’ I said to myself, ‘‘ or one who lives in the shadow of a mystery.’’ But to her I said: ‘‘ A thousand times—I should ask no greater happiness.”’ It was plain to me that she was greatly agitated ; a fact which seemed to link the events of that strange night, when I had searched her house and come upon the body of a sleeping man there, with her visit to my garret in the Marylebone Road. I was quite sure that she had told me nothing of the true history of that business ; and when she sat again in my armchair and made a sign to me to take a seat at her side, I thought that she was about to speak of it~ But for a while she said nothing, though I could see her searching for words and covering her difficulty with an exquisite play of her magnificent fan. ‘“Captain Falconer,’’ she said of a sudden, laying her fan upon her knee, ‘‘did not they say that you were the finest swordsman in your reyiment ?’’ ‘They said a good many absurd things, Madame Gavarnie.’’ She ignored the evasion. ‘* And the best horseman ?’’ she continued. ‘“Oh, my dear lady, will you not spare me ?”’ ‘You like the civilian’s life?’”’ ‘‘ Like it? Heaven forbid !”’ 8 ‘*Vou would not refuse the offer of a commission abroad if it were made” to you ?”’ ‘A commission abroad—in a European regiment ?’”’ She laughed at my unconcealed astonishment. ‘In a regiment of which all Europe will hear before the year is out?’”’ ‘‘ For a possible service against my own country, madam ?”’ ‘‘For a possible service against the world, captain.”’ Isabella de Gavarnie had the Southern love for the dramatic in thought, in word, in act. No queen of tragedy could have spoken the words as she spoke them. Even my stupefying surprise at her words could not hide from comicbooks (E(0)