The Argosy — page 138: what you’re looking at

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

i “ra, © On and Off. I2I Dinner put a different complexion on matters, as it always does ; and by the time that Wilfrid Chesney had finished his dinner, and stretched out his feet to the coffee-room fire, it began again to seem possible that life was not altogether a delusion, and that every hope- ful path might not prove a cul-de-sac, in which you must end by knocking your head against a dead wall. This more cheerful view of things was confirmed by their further course. One or two men dropped into the hotel smoking-room, whom he had met here and there, and exchanged a few words with ; he fell into chat with them and their acquaintances, cards were sent for, and Nap. became the order of the evening. Wilfrid had a few sovereigns in his pocket, and was in the humour to be reckless ; but his play was good, and his luck was steady. Shillings soon run into pounds at that very immoral game ; the other players grew excited, and raised the points, but Wilfrid kept his head and hisluck. When he drove back to Ventnor that night in one of the hotel flies, he had no longer any anxiety about the bill, nor indeed about anything else. When a man can make twenty guineas in an evening’s amusement, why need he care for any old woman’s leavings? In whatever fashion Ada had spent the evening, she was sound asleep when he arrived ; and so peace and downy slumber sealed up the cataclysmic day which ended the Chesneys’ honeymoon. CHAPIER IL. Mrs. Lirrorp’s will proved somewhat to exceed Ada’s expectations. She had left her niece residuary legatee ; and as she had tew debts, a good balance at her banker’s, and some small investments, it ap- peared that when the other legacies were paid, Ada would come in for a couple of hundred pounds in cash, a good many spoons and forks, a genuine Teniers (representing two Dutch boors drinking in a cloud of tobacco-smoke), and a dubious Turner, representing thumb-smudges and sunset glory; besides an annual income from railway shares of twenty-seven pounds ten, as long as the island of Cuba maintained its usual peaceful and prosperous condition. ‘This was so much more than Wilfrid had expected, when he had once fallen from his heights of happy anticipation, that he grew quite jubilant, and was rather surprised that his wife did not seem to share his good spirits. In fact, he did not understand her at all. She treated him in a polite and friendly way, but never now seemed to expect to be made love to, or gave him any opening for doing it, if he had been inclined. They went at once to Mrs. Lifford’s house, and she occupied herself in looking over stores, clothes, &c, and in making all the arrangements for the break-up of the establishment. Wilfrid did his duty manfully in moving heavy things for her, and nailing up boxes ; and he it was who sold the Teniers, and fought CONNIE OOO KS (E(©) m