The Argosy — page 330: what you’re looking at

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

3TI MR. JERMYN’S RACQUET. By THE AUTHOR OF ‘*‘ ADonAIS, Q. C.,” ‘‘ THE CONVERSION OF PROFESSOR Nass,” &c. ig had been an awkward meeting for both, in the long, crowded, lamp-lit drawing-room of the White Lion ; but so far they had both got well through it. It was Autumn. ‘The waters of the broad bay lay still as glass, shimmering in the pale moonlight. From the windows of this hotel you had a fine view of the bay, away down over the tops of the other houses. ‘The hotel stood upon an eminence, overlooking the whole watering-place. Behind it stretched a long garden, backed by a fir wood, and upon the right was a lawn andatennis court. In the front, the steep white road coming from the watering-place led up to the very steps of the house. Its sign—if one may talk of the sign of so very fine and fashionable an hotel—was the White Lion ; and it was rather a funny name, for the watering-place itself was never known by any other than Little Souris. Why Little Souris (pronounced according to the English sound of the spelling) should have become universally called so, nobody knew, for it was undeniable that its legitimate geo- graphical name was Catchington. For an imaginative person, at any rate, who could believe the original idea to have been that this little watering-place resembled a mouse, curled cosily up between two high cliffs, and looking sleepily out upon the broad bay, it was a very pretty idea. Whether it was the pretty idea, or the quaint old picturesque houses, or the sunny soft air, or the broad blue bay, nobody could say, but year by year the popularity of Little Souris and of the White Lion grew. These two, Mr. Jermyn and Miss Raymond, had met in the draw- ing-room of the hotel this evening before everyone assembled there ; in the very surprise and confusion of the meeting, they had recognised each other publicly ; and having once done so, had drifted into rather a constrained conversation upon general topics ; each one no doubt turning over in their own mind the probabilities and improbabilities of any of the seventy or eighty people present £zozwzng. Not that there was really anything very much out of the ordinary to know. An intimacy, ripening into something more; a misunderstand- ing ; and a separation. ‘Three very common chapters, no doubt, in a very hackneyed type of romance. Still, one’s own romance is apt to be all the world to oneself, let it be hackneyed to the rest of the world as it may; and also there are ways and ways of treating a misunder- standng. By Mr. Jermyn’s and Miss Raymond’s way, it is absolutely certain that each would have stared straight past the other in a solitary GoOmiilGc soo <S (SO) am