The Argosy — page 117: what you’re looking at

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

104 The White Witch. ‘Then you must like Miss Dixon more than me,” broke out Elspeth unreasonably. “My dear Elspeth, that has nothing to do with it.” “Well, you must admire her dresses more than mine,” amended she, querulously. That was unquestionable, but he saw that it would not do to admit it. He instantly professed to admire her frocks, made by the Swiss maid from patterns in the fashion journal, and covered with curious vagaries in ill-matched trimming, contrasting with the costlysim- plicity of that other one. He went back to luncheon with a new in- terest ; he was less churlish than he had been since her arrival. He begged her to take strawberries; he offered to get her a book that was mentioned, which she said she should like to read. Miss Dixon did not care for strawberries ; she had too much on her hands to begin a new book just yet. Godfrey did not allow the possibility of her wishing to snub him, even with such advantages as her charming appearance gave her. | He admitted that in that get-up she looked charming, wondered he had not noticed before how delicate her features were, and knew that a little colour in her cheeks would make her lovely. After luncheon he had followed the ladies into the drawing-room. It was the first time since Miss Dixon’s arrival that he had done so. As he threw himself into a chair and picked up a book without the least intention of reading it, and with a side glance at Mary to see what she was going to do, he caught a look on his step-mother’s face which arrested his attention, though he did not let her see it. He had seen Mrs. Mayne’s blue eyes, unusually so placid, travel stealthily from her daughter to him wide with an anxiety he could not understand. What on earth was she afraid of? After turning this question over in his mind, with his eyes on his book, he could only come to the one conclusion, that she feared, with a mother’s natural partiality, that her daughter’s attractions, to which he had been so blind until to-day, might disturb the course of his affection for little Elspeth. If this were so, her disinterestedness did his step-mother great credit. For would it not have been to the interest of herself and her daughter to secure himself as a son-in-law, and have no more care for the girl’s future any more than for her own? Godfrey Mayne pre- sented advantages. It was not every young man who was heir to such a place as Croxham Abbey. ‘There was something in all this that he could not penetrate. ‘Tt is very hot in this room,” he observed. ‘If you will trust to me, Miss Dixon, I will undertake to find you a seat where you shall even have a breeze.” “If you can manufacture that, I will go with pleasure,” said she. Godfrey noted, he thought, dismay on the mother’s face as they both left her presence, ‘The refectory was a large, high room at Gomichbooks <e<om ft i i —E——————— ;