The Argosy — page 275: what you’re looking at

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

256 Winifred Power. mitted wrong seemed more probable to Winifred since she had known the courtly owner of ‘The Limes. Every day that handsome face— so impassible and so pallid, so rigid without real strength—had struck her more and more asa mask. Everyday she felt more strongly the hollowness of the man; his vain theatricality, his thin pretensions to be a student and a sage. And even stronger than all this in her was the feeling that he was fundamentally bad. By the very recoil of her expectations regarding him, she had been suddenly illuminated ; and coming fresh to the scene, observant and penetrating as she was, she had felt the presence of a secret that fell like an invisible blight upon every member of the family. That Sir John alone had the key to it, that it concerned him and nobody else, Winifred was sure. Even Mark only betrayed at times a vague perplexity, while as for Dolly and her sister they simply remarked once or twice that of late “Uncle John was somehow changed. Perhaps his heart was worse.” He certainly complained very much oftener of that organ than of old; made more frequent visits to London to consult the specialists on the subject ; and was more difficult to approach with any request for help or sympathy. On the other hand his bibliomania greatly increased ; and was intensely interested in the results of Richard’s trip to the Hague. The young man and he were in constant cor- respondence ; and Sir John made frequent allusion to the number and value of the editions that he was buying. “Does Dick like Holland?” asked Winifred one evening of Gertrude, moved by a desire to say something amiable to her former friend, with whom she now rarely exchanged a remark. ‘“‘T believe so,” was the answer. ‘‘ But he does not write to ] me.” ‘But then you see his letters to Sir John,” said Mrs. Fane. “JT beg your pardon. I conduct a great deal of Sir John’s correspondence, but not that with Richard: I fancy he thinks I don’t know how to spell Elzevir,” retorted Gertrude, coolly. ‘‘ Nevertheless,” thought she to herself, ‘it zs odd, now I come to think of it, that he never shows me those letters. And he is rather mysterious about a good deal of his correspondence, though I would not admit it before these women for the world.” ‘‘The member for Walford 1s dead, sir,” said Mark, a little later, to his father. “So I see. Do you still intend to stand?” ‘TI think so. I shall go to London to-morrow, and then run down to the place itself and set things en train. Of course, I shall be beaten, but even that is a beginning,” continued the young man. Winifred looked up quickly. So that was why Mark had adopted no profession. He intended himself for political life. She looked at his broad brow, and his grave, resolute face, almost as handsome as, and yet so different from Sir John’s; and already her imagination Gomicbooksneo im