The Argosy — page 114: what you’re looking at

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

Lady Valeria. 99 now, and came and went, and eat, and slept, with utter disregard of ordinary habits and precedents. Sometimes Mr. Beltran would disappear for weeks and months at a time, and then spend day after day at home in bed. Elsie could hear him stumbling upstairs lightly in the early grey mornings, and would hear sounds suggestive of getting up in the course of the afternoon ; and, later on, had once or twice encountered in the hall a smiling, dark complexioned man, wearing very new glossy clothes, and a great deal of jewellery, who left a strong whiff of combined tobacco and millefleurs on the air as he passed by. Mrs. Beltran’s comings and goings were as erratic as her husband’s ; but, as they seemed on excellent terms, paid their rent punctually, and kept no children, pet animals, or other element of discord about the premises, their fellow-lodgers ceased to concern themselves about them. ‘They were “ foreigners,” and that accounted for everything. - A nod and a smile as she passed Elsie at work in her window, then a word at the open door, and so it grew to be a habit for Mrs. Beltran to drop in casually, but only when Elsie was alk alone. There was an odd sense of latent power about her perfectly fascinating to the girl. Then she would listen with profoundest interest to the smallest of girlish gossip, and tell in return of strange countries and adventures. Indeed, it is to be feared that sundry flashes of reckless talk, and a dare-devil laugh, with which her narra- tions were occasionally spiced, had a wicked attraction in them- selves for the naughty little romantic child. Elsie, roused from her dream, looked at her half impatiently at first, then seemed to awake more fully, witha start. ‘‘ Was it him you meant?” she asked, in an awed whisper. “The Dark King,” assented Mrs. Beltran. A large work-basket stood on the table. Lifting it carefully off, Mrs. Beltran proceeded to roll off the oilcloth cover, disclosing the white wood top, on which were arranged a number of small playing- cards, arranged in a peculiar pattern. It would be useless to describe it in detail, except so far as that it consisted of the cards of one pack, starting from the Queen of Hearts, arranged in a pattern of diagonal lines of varying length: the spaces between which were to be filled from the cards of other packs on some principle known only to the initiated. The scheme had been interrupted during the placing of the cards of the second pack, which had started from the King of Spades. Mrs. Beltran went on dealing and placing with a swiftness and dex- terity that were in themselves noteworthy, talking all the time with soft, mechanical volubility for Elsie’s benefit, and yet with her mind evidently set on the working out of some problem for her own private satisfaction. ‘‘ The Dark King, yes, there, just as I told you; he crosses your life, my child. No, I have misplaced acard. Your lives do not cross, they meet. For good, did you ask? But yes, cer- COMmMiIcoaooks (CO)