The Argosy — page 385: what you’re looking at

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

In a Dangerous Strait. 367 me a series of etchings from these photos, which were taken from pictures in the gallery of the Chateau de Fontenay. You will be at a disadvantage in not having seen the originals, but those, alas ! were sold and dispersed with the rest of my household gods when I became an exile and a wanderer.” “You have given me a very pleasant task,” Gilbert replied ; “and I will do my best to achieve it to your satisfaction. I see that there are some portraits among them.” ‘*Yes—dead and gone de Fontenays. You need not copy those ; I don’t care enough for my ancestors to make them interesting.” “You have preserved the family type,” Gilbert said, smiling. “ This "— indicating a half-length figure in the costume of the Grand Monarque’s days—“ might be yourself in fancy dress.” He glanced at it and laughed. ‘‘I am flattered by the resem- blance. That is Baron Enguerraud de Fontenay, one of the blackest sheep in the family flock—and there have been not a few among us,” he added, coolly. ‘We are a reckless, spendthrift, ne’er-do-well stock, we de Fontenays, though we have somehow managed in all our follies to keep honour intact. ‘Tout est perdu, fors ’honneur,’ might be our motto.” ‘An unsullied name is an inheritance to be proud of,” observed Mrs. Haviland. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘‘ Unfortunately one cannot live on it, madame,” he answered cynically. ‘‘‘ When lands are gone, and money spent,’ as the old song says, honour is but a barren heritage. That is enough of pictures for the present. Will Mademoiselle Jeanne oblige us with a little music ?” Jeanie shook her head. ‘I could not venture to play before so accomplished a musician as yourself, monsieur.” He did not press her, but, taking his seat at the piano, struck a few masterly chords, then glided into the “ Moonlight Sonata.” Attracted, in spite of herself, by the exquisite music, Janet ap- proached, and stood watching the slender but powerful fingers, on one of which a great ruby gleamed, blood red. Presently, without removing his hands from the keys, he glanced round at Gilbert and his mother. They were still absorbed in the _pictures and talking with animation. ‘‘ What a pleasant, peaceful home interior!” he murmured, keeping up a subdued ripple of accompaniment. “ A haven of rest, it seems, to a storm-tossed wanderer like myself. Every form of what the world calls pleasure I have known, but the joys of home—never, or I might have been a better man.” “ Perhaps you would have found them insipid,” she said. He smiled rather bitterly. ‘I understand you: you think me incapable of appreciating innocent pleasures—you may even doubt my capacity for affection. But there you are wrong. World- hardened as I am, I can still love, deeply, passionately ; and for the comicbooks.coni