The Argosy — page 90: what you’re looking at

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

/5 AFTER YEARS OF WAITING. “T SHALL see you to-night, Mrs. Kathlane ?” “ At the Grangers! Yes, I shall be there. I hope it won't be a crush.” “Why? I rather like a crush.” “Oh. A crush makes me feel vicious.” Rupert Thornbury smiled as he looked down at the speaker. Some- thing had evidently put her out. ‘Are you often viciously disposed, Mrs. Kathlane? It is news to me.” “IT wish you would not call me that, Rupert. Mrs. Kathlane! You do it on purpose, and I don’t like it.” The last words were spoken like a petulant child; and there was a cloud on the face which looked up for a moment from the soft vividly coloured wools which the white and slender fingers were knitting into some incomprehensible “fancy-work.” <A very beautiful face it was, and a very beautiful woman was little Mrs. Kathlane ; and no one in the wide world was more thoroughly convinced of that fact than Rupert Thornbury. She was slight and small in figure—girlish looking still, despite her four and twenty years. No other woman would have dared, with her complexion, to wear the colours which she did; often in defiance of ordinary rules. She wore, this morning, a deep, royal purple dress, with purple bands in her dark hair, and looked, as no other woman could have looked—charming. Her hair drooped over her forehead in lustrous waves, and was fastened behind with a high, golden comb. Her face was almost marvellous in its perfect form and brilliant colour- ing ; and her great dark eyes, with their long lashes, were enough of themselves to turn an ordinary man’s head. “IT don’t like it,” she said again, glancing at her companion, who was abstractedly tangling the bright wools apparently lost in thought, ‘‘and I shall be seriously angry with you if you persist in being so formal. For it is formal, after you have known me since I was a little child, to speak as though we were strangers.” “Vl not call you so again, Millicent. Only *” Mr. Thornbury paused. “Only what ?” returned the imperious little lady, giving him another ‘searching glance. | ‘Things have changed a great deal since you were a child, Millicent. You are a woman now, wealthy, courted, flattered ; and I—but it is no good talking of these things, I must be going. Will you promise me the first waltz to-night ?” CoOnmmiclooolkks (SO)