The Argosy — page 157: what you’re looking at

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

140 Monsieur Michaud’s Fiancée. ‘“‘ A woman has always time to think of love,” he said, sulkily. “ Georgette is not like the rest of her sex. I'll tell you what it is, Blaise, she is a pearl among women, she is so true, so good, so altogether unlike most women, that you couldn’t find such another if you looked all through Paris.” ‘I’m not going to try,’ was the savage answer. ‘‘But then she’s poor, and an orphan, no one to look after her interests but myself, you understand, mon cher ?” ‘You make it quite plain to me, Cousin Gustave. Bon soir.” M. Michaud was not at all angry with Blaise for his ill-temper. On the contrary, it seemed to put him in high good humour. He was so tired that night that he overslept himself, and found in the morning that Georgette had gone off to a rehearsal without waiting for him. So he determined to go and meet her in the Tuileries and see how she looked after her triumph. It was a cold winter’s day; now and then the sun burst out brightly in the gardens, trying to cheat the children who were playing about into the belief that it was not winter, and then going suddenly behind a cloud to see them look anxiously with their bright eyes for his coming out again. A regular game of hide-and-seek they had, the children and the sun! It was in one of these intervals of retirement when a melancholy gloom spread quickly over the gardens, and through the leafless chesnuts, and round the statues, and across the deserted chairs in cafés, that Georgette ran hastily down the stone steps and saw M. Michaud waiting for her. She looked terribly disturbed and not at all like a success, her head, instead of being erect was bent low, slow tears made their way through her heavy eyelids and fell on the fur of her winter jacket; she made straight for the seat, however, and never paused till she reached M. Michaud’s side. “Well, mon enfant, what says M. Roche?” ‘““M. Roche says that I shall do now, he will give me a good salary, and——-ah! M. Michaud, I owe it all to you; but—yes, I am a wretch, an ungrateful, cold-hearted wretch, still I have tried, I have fought against it and now I am come to ask you to release me from my promise, You don’t know what it costs me to say this, more tears than you can imagine, more hours of misery than I ever knew in my life before; but—I love another. Look, M. Michaud, despise me, but give me back my word.” M. Michaud was almost struck dumb. He looked at Georgette for one instant and knew it was real, knew that whatever she was, Georgette was true, she dd love another.” “‘ Georgette, is it—-—” “No, no; you don’t know him; he came to the theatre, he would come. I told him of you, of your goodness, what you had done for me, and—please give me back my word.” “Tell me his name, Georgette.” Eomicbooks.co