The Argosy — page 149: what you’re looking at

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

137 PLAYING WITH FIRE. IN a crowded London drawing-room, one evening near the end of May, Howard Scott was leaning against the door-post, rather sulkily wishing that the Season and its votaries were trans- ported ‘to the planet Saturn” to look for political economy and the lost arts. He was at this ‘At Home” in attendance on his mother and sister, and up to the present moment had experienced no plea- sure sufficient to counterbalance the discomforts of a heated atmo- sphere, an over-filled room, and a subdued Babel of small talk. Among the ever-flowing and ebbing tide of evening-dressed humanity, which passed half-an-hour here on its way to and from the houses of other friends, there was no one possessing for him any special interest, though the majority greeted him with bow and smile, or with indescribable masculine gesture of recognition. He was just wondering whether it would be worth while to try and force a passage across the room to the neighbourhood of a certain sparkling blonde of his acquaintance, when his hostess’s voice broke on his ear. “Come,” she said, “ I want to introduce you to our beauty.” Lady Gamgee was very literary indeed, and very fond of all young writers ; so it happened that Howard Scott—junior critic of the ‘‘ Free Lance ”—was rather a favourite of hers. He followed obediently, and she led him to the door of the conservatory, near which was standing the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Her hair was dark brown, so were her eyes; her figure was tall, and beautifully formed. In defiance of fashion, she wore a clinging dress of softest Indian muslin, and absolutely no ornaments, save a branch of white lilac across her bosom. ‘Miss Severn, let me present Mr. Scott to you.” A mutual bow. The introductory words were the briefest and commonest of commonplace, and to Scott they merely meant a not unwelcome permission to try whether this exquisite vision had a soul and a mind, or was merely waxwork. But to her the words were the trumpet of battle, the preface to a strong, determined effort. In that swift upward glance which she gave him before either of them spoke, she reviewed the field, the position of the attacking and opposing forcés, the possibilities of defeat; and as her lashes fell again, her unspoken conclusion was this : S° 1 can make you like me, and I wéi/ /” Howard opened with some feeble remark about the weather, which, g May, in London had, of course, been rainy. “ Yes,” said Miss Severn, slowly moving her large white fan. ‘I hgve just come from Madeira, and this climate seems to me to com- ine the acme of dreariness with the quintessence of neuralgia.” VOL. XLIV. ' . JK. it comicbooks.com