The Argosy — page 102: what you’re looking at

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90 Edina. What precisely passed between them perhaps neither could after- wards clearly recall. He said something about how sorry he was that their happy intercourse should have been marred; Alice inter- rupted him with a sharp and haughty word. William Stane retorted ; and things were spoken between them, in the moment’s anger, that could neither be unsaid nor qualified. Prejudiced by his father’s account of the unsatisfactory interview with the Major, he had come, | naturally inclined to espouse his father’s side; Alice on her part up- held their own. Very short indeed was the scene, but it was a decisive one. “‘I am sorry to have been so mistaken in you, Miss Raynor,” he said, turning to depart. ‘No great harm has, however. been done.” “None,” returned Alice. “Fare you well.” * He raised his hat without speaking, and the echoes of his retreating footsteps died away in the shrubbery. Thus they parted. The fault being at least as much Alice’s as his. Whether he had come to smooth matters, to repudiate the fiat Sir Philip had pronounced, Alice knew not, but she did not allow him the opportunity. If the possession of Eagles’ Nest had taught nothing else to Major Raynor’s children, it had certainly taught them self- arrogance. The world seemed made for them, and for them alone. Alice went upstairs humming a gay song, and passed into Daisy's room. She halted at the glass, glancing at her pretty face, at the brightness of the blue eyes, at the unusual colour on her cheeks, and touching here and there her light brown hair. Frank’s wife turned round. “You are gay this afternoon, Alice.” “ Gay as a fairy,” replied Alice. ‘It is lovely out of doors. The sun’s shining and the birds are singing.” A few days went on. Charley was in a state of inward collapse. For, not one single minute in those days came and passed, but he was looking out for some dreadful shock, emanating from the enemy, Huddles. Each night, as the dusk fell, he felt not at all thankful that the blow had kept off, concluding that the morrow would bring it. Some- times he wished he lived in the old days of barbarism and pilgrim- ages; that he might follow the fashion and set out to some distant holy shrine, with hard peas in his shoes and fretting horsehair next his skin. The peas and the horsehair would be pleasant, in comparison with this mental torment and suspense. Alice continued gay; gay asa lark. Was it put on, this gaiety, or was it real? Perhaps she herself did not know. “You could not have cared much for William Stane, Alice, or he for you,” one day remarked her mother, to whom the affair had given pain, interrupting Alice in the carolling of a song, sung to an impromptu dance. iw le comicbooks.com