The Argosy — page 302: what you’re looking at

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

Fack Laybourne’s Inheritance. 283 shrank back, shaking his head, stamping his foot, and indulging in every manifestation of excitement and entreaty! As he advanced, she retreated; as she tried to free her hands, he took them in both his own ; as she averted-her face, he bent so low before her that I thought the next moment would see him on his knees at her feet. These movements were repeated several times, the actors in the scene, meanwhile, becoming so excited that their voices, although not their words, were audible to us. Madame Sobranowski all this time was keeping up a running fire of sardonic commentary: ‘‘ C’est ca! hold her hand—she pretends to timidity—ah, la coquine !—not wicked only, but expert—What a charming tableau !—my husband is eloquent !—doubtless he weeps, the crocodile !—he had best not kneel—he Is getting fat, it won’t be so easy to rise !—cette mees !— cette candide jeune fille! How well she leads him on! Huis prayers enchant her—I wonder how long she wishes him to continue !—I should like to hear him—it would be an agreeable novelty !—Grand ciel! quel supplice!” Her voice rose almost to a shriek as she pronounced the last word, and the sound of it must have reached the ears of the couple below. * Bor they looked up, and then started apart as if shot. Flinging out her hands ‘ede. a gesture of despair that was abe lutely dramatic, Miss Laybourne turned and fled like a startled hare. The Prince made one step after her; thought better of it, glanced upwards, and, with marvellous impudence, lifted his hat to his wife and me! Then, jauntily replacing this, he thrust one hand in a dégagé manner in his pocket, and proceeded slowly to mount in our direction. The fat Princess, with inconceivable agility, started off to meet him, as red in the face as a turkey-cock, and gobbling very like one. To my ears, of course, there was nothing but sound and fury in her rapid string of Russian expletives, but it -is certain I should be doing these a great injustice if I hinted that they sig- nified nothing! My heated imagination now suggested that the only possible next act to the drama would be the scratching out of the Prince’s eyes at the hands of his outraged consort. Not being anxious to assist at this catastrophe, I too turned tail, but in an opposite direction, fleeing upwards to the chalet. Arrived there, I mechanically drank off my glass of milk—it would be difficult truly to say why. I should have drained a cup of hemlock just then with about as much consciousness of what I was doing. But I suppose it was a relief to do anything. And then I went home, hurried to my own room and sat down to think. As calm returned to me, better ideas regarding Rita presented them- selves. She had distinctly said, on begging me to leave her, that she was doing noharm. Itwas evident from her attitude throughout the whole interview with the Russian that she had listened to him with reluctance and refused him some request. What this request might be I was at CORNIELO© (©)