The Argosy — page 81: what you’re looking at

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

—— The Missing Rubies. 71 had looked approvingly at the soft round face in the Paris bonnet. A pretty women is welcome all the year round; but doubly so in winter, when flowers are scarce, and bright eyes and glowing cheeks make amends for their absence. If anyone had chanced to look up at one of those balcony windows, he would have seen a flower-like face with dark eyes gazing wistfully down into the street below. Madame was young, and she sighed and looked a little en- viously at the Sunday couples, walking along in holiday garb, and enjoying the winter sunbeams. She had made up her mind to have a great deal of pleasure in her life, but somehow she had not got all that she had expected. It was dull work, sitting here and watching other people having good times; and she was just going to leave the window, when the street-door was heard suddenly to close. She felt a languid curiosity in the other occupants of the house. Were any of them going out? Yes; a slim, well-dressed man anda tall girl emerged from the door and crossed the street side by side. She knew the girl at a glance; the plain cloth jacket, tnmmed with fur that was not of the costliest description, fitted the graceful figure perfectly ; and glimpses of sunny hair were seen under a little black velvet bonnet. It was Beatrice Ward, whose fresh, white-rose face had won Madame’s half-unwilling admiration on the evening of their first meeting. But who was her companion ? The man chanced to raise his head, and look up, as it seemed, to the very window at which the new lodger was sitting. With an irre- pressible cry, Madame started back, and hid herself behind the curtain, crouching down into her chair in a perfect agony of fear. For some seconds she did not move ; and when, at last, she rose, and went over to a couch by the fire, her face was deadly white and her hands were damp and cold. “It was only a chance resemblance,” she said, over and over again. “‘T am getting fearfully nervous ; how can I be fit for any work if I start at every shadow? And yet life is full of strange meetings, and all one’s plans may be upset in a moment by some unfortunate encounter.” She bent over the fire, chafing her cold hands, and shivering from head to foot. And then, happening to catch sight of her face in a little mirror that hung between the windows, this strange woman sud- denly took heart. The colour returned to her lips; her eyes lost their scared expression ; she rose, and went up close to the glass and deliberately surveyed herself. “ Even if he saw me, he would never know me!” she murmured ; and a faint smile of satisfaction hovered round the beautiful mouth. “‘ The features are the same, of course. But hair, complexion and figure—all have utterly changed. And he scarcely looked at me in those days. His head was full of his troubles, and of that stiff, cold- comicbooks.com