The Argosy — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

Monsieur Silvain’s Secret. 2 5 His emotion had subsided, but he was still sitting in the same dejected attitude, when there was a gentle summons at the outer door. He allowed it to be twice repeated before he roused himself to answer it. At length, with an impatient shrug, he unlocked the door, and started when he found that the visitor was Renée. ‘Tam come to scold you, Monsieur Silvain,” she began, with her sweet smile. ‘“ Marthe tells us that you refused to come in because we had a visitor. Surely you did not think you would be intruding ? Monsieur Delaunay wishes to be introduced to you. I ought to tell you,” she added shyly, “that we—that we are engaged, though our engagement has not the sanction of his family, and ” She checked herself, noticing for the first time his unusual pallor and gravity. ‘You are not ill, Monsieur Silvain ?” He shook his head, smiling constrainedly. ‘‘ No, not ill, only a little low-spirited, and therefore not likely to be good company this evening, so I will beg you to excuse me.” “IT am very sorry,” she said gently, putting out her hand. He took it in both his own, looking at her with an expression of tender earnestness, which she had never seen on his face before. “We have all our troubles—you have yours also my child, have you not? but you are young, and in youth, ‘though sorrow may endure for a night, joy cometh with the morning.’ ” ‘My ‘morning’ seems still far off,” she answered, with a smile and a sigh. “ Have patience, it will come—sooner perhaps than you expect,” was his reply. ‘Thanks for your sympathy, my sweet friend. Good-night.” ‘ Until to-morrow,” she cried. He watched her out of sight, then stood for a moment on the landing, looking down, deep in thought. When he raised his face, it had recovered its usual serenity, and wore a look of resolution which gave it a new dignity. “Yes,” he muttered, “I will do it; she shall be happy. And as for me—well, I shall be no worse off than I was formerly. Allons!” And rousing himself from his abstraction, he turned into his solitary rooms once more and closed the door. The New Year began auspiciously with brilliant sunshine and a cloudless sky. The domes and spires of Paris, lightly powdered with new fallen snow, looked fairy-like and aerial, and when a light breeze stirred the river, every ripple flashed back the sunbeams. On this great festival of the year, all Paris seemed to be out of doors. The boulevards, with their long lines of stalls, were thronged with promenaders, the shops and cafés crowded with customers, while merry family parties hurried along on foot or in carriages, to pay the round of calls which French etiquette prescribes on the “ Jour de PAn,” Renée and her fiancé had spent the whole sunny afternoon =e comicbooks.com