The Argosy — page 153: what you’re looking at

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

Playing with Fire. 141 daily visitor in Eaton Square, she would hardly have enjoyed the rocks and woods and waters as much as she did. And Laura’s plans were succeeding au mieux. Scott’s devotion would have been apparent to any observer less self-absorbed than Lady Gamgee. Soon would come Miss Severn’s grand triumph, the moment when he would offer his love, and she would refuse it. This was her aim, her end: that he should love her as madly as it was in him to love any woman, and that she should laugh at him ! She hated him—or so she said to herself. And of course she must have hated him, or why did her hand tremble when his touched it? Why did her heart beat so when his foot was on the stairs ? Why did her face flush if only his name were mentioned? Why did she care only for the time she passed with him, and think all of her life wasted that was not spent on her one great object ? “It is because I hate him so,” she said to herself. “I had not thought it was in me, so to hate anyone. Yet I disguise it well! Ah! I should be a good actress.” Every night she used to take out the painted portraits of Constance and kiss them and talk to them. At first she used to whisper to them the words Scott had spoken during the day, but after awhile she discontinued this, and used simply to sit and think over the talk they two had had, and feel mildly exultant at the progress she had made. Did any thought ever come to her that it was a cruel deed she was engaged in—that vengeance was not a weapon meant for hands like hers? If such scruples ever came she stifled them at once, and re- peated to herself : “An eye for an eye. It is justice ; nothing more.” One June afternoon, when the earth was sleepy with heat, and the pavements dusty and baked, Howard Scott exchanged the glare and glitter of the streets for the cool, rose-scented boudoir in Eaton Square, where the electric-blue hangings made the temperature seem a degree or two lower than it really was. “Tam so sorry! Lady Gamgee is in the agonies of a crisis: the third volume of ‘Pastors and Masters,’” said Laura, as she came forward to greet him, her long, soft draperies trailing behind her and making a palish pink light in the sun-blind shaded room. “I believe we shall have to entertain each other till tea arrives.” “T wish you would entertain me by showing me your paintings,” he said, as he sat down on a low chair and began lazily to stroke Lady Gamgee’s oldest and fattest pug. “Do you?” “Yes ; very much indeed.” A pause. “Well,” abruptly, “I will.” “This is very good of you,” he murmured, as he held the door for her to pass out. “If I only knew how to thank you.” comicbooks.com