The Argosy — page 388: what you’re looking at

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

370 In a Dangerous Stratt. ‘Three hundred pounds.” She uttered an exclamation of dismay. ‘ When shall you be able to repay it?” ‘“‘In time—and de Fontenay is not likely to hurry me,” he said cheerfully. ‘I feel that I have it in me to succeed, Janet, if I can only get a start in the right groove. This commission of his may be the first step towards that brilliant future you are so fond of pre- dicting for me.” He stole an arm round her waist and drew her to his side. ‘You know for whose sake I am anxious to succeed,” he whispered, looking down at her with tender seriousness. ‘I have never before put my hopes into words, but I think you have guessed them, Jeanie?” “Yes,” she said simply. But even as her sweet lips met his, and they took their first long, lingering kiss of love, Janet shivered with a vague foreboding of coming trouble. II. TuoucuH M. de Fontenay was fond of alluding to himself as a poor man, there were no signs of poverty in his manner of living. The house which he had taken, when he settled in Hammerton, some six months before making Gilbert’s acquaintance, was a large and hand- some one, standing in an aristocratic suburb of ihe town, The “ Priory,” as it was called, a comparatively old house, was a square, substantial building, of mellow-tinted red brick, so thickly sheltered by trees and shrubs as to be invisible from the road ; and though its exterior was typically English, in its look of solid respect- ability, it was as thoroughly French inside as if it had been transported bodily from the environs of Paris. M. de Fontenay’s fastidious taste was shown in the rich but subdued elegance of the furniture and decorations. Gilbert Haviland proceeded to keep his dinner engagement at the appointed hour, and was admitted by an English footman ; but M. de Fontenay’s valet, and confidential servant, Luigi—a_ soft-voiced, obsequious Italian—came forward to relieve him of his hat and overcoat, and usher him into the “salon.” It was a long, lofty room on the ground floor, with furniture of inlaid ebony; panelled walls, a polished floor, and two tall windows draped with olive-green plush. To his surprise, for he had expected to dine téte-A-téte with his host, he found two other visitors present, who were introduced to him respectively as the Vicomte de Sanzac and Monsieur Docquois. The former, a young man, was a type of a Parisian dandy of the “Third Empire ;” with a handsome but dissipated face, a waxed moustache, a glass screwed into his eye, and an expression of amiable self-sufficiency. Docquois, whom Gilbert fancied he recognised as Janet’s,‘‘con- comicbooks.com