The Argosy — page 63: what you’re looking at

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

Molly at the ‘‘ Mitre.” 53 Down at the Boats, her plan began to take form and shape. Even while she stood on Jack’s college barge and watched the pro- cession pass, with all its interest of an unexpected “bump” and a popular college as Head of the River, she had made up her mind what to do. How to do it depended on her opportunity. And the opportunity came. The band under the grey walls of Christ Church was playing airs from the “ Mikado,” unconscious of incongruity ; Jack was doing duty with Flo Bussell, whose erudition was at once “a torment and a treasure” to hercousin. Lady Bussell, who had taken Hayward’s arm, somewhat to that gentleman’s discomposure, was expounding her approval of early marriages, far in the rear. Molly found herself for the first moment alone with young Forbes: the simplest, most boyish, most anxious to be of use of all undergraduates. “Will you take me back to the “ Mitre,” Mr. Forbes?” Molly asked, with sudden resolution. ‘I am tired, and it is cold, and I have no shawl. No! don’t rush off to fetch anything. I would really rather go back and rest a little. And then perhaps you will return and explain to the others that I had had enough of the band and the crowd, and would prefer to sit quiet for half an hour till it is time to get ready for Worcester.” Forbes felt immensely flattered by this appeal. He took Molly quickly away out of the crowd, and by short cuts and quiet corners brought her speedily back to the “ Mitre.” There was a delightful flavour of outdoing Hayward, almost a soupcon of an innocent elopement about the whole transaction. He wondered if he ought to offer Miss Verey his arm under the cir- cumstances, but contented himself with carrying her parasol and murmuring observations in an almost unintelligible voice, supposed to be specially adapted to the senses of the overfatigued. And when he left her at the door of the hotel, he was convinced that her half hour’s rest and consequent reappearance at the féte at Worcester depended entirely on his skilful management of Lady Bussell and Hayward. ‘Depend on me, Miss Verey. I'll keep them quite quiet, and they sha’n’t be a bit anxious about you. You aren’t really ill, are you? But I won't let them get back for a good hour yet, so that you can have a nice little sleep, or—or a cup of tea, or anything, and be quite fresh for the evening.” An hour to herself: before Hayward’s compliments, Jack’s brotherly requirements, Lady Bussell’s good-natured worrying began again! How much could be done in an hour towards righting an afternoon’s mistakes and the whole future of two lives? The waiter of the ‘ Mitre” stepped out upon Molly as she went up the stairs to the coffee-room. “ A gentleman called, Miss, while you was out—name of Ransome —asked for Lady Bussell’s party, and went upstairs to look for a comicbooks.com