The Argosy — page 192: what you’re looking at

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

Lady Valeria. 175 Heaven showers on women, to be a snare and a stumbling-block in a man’s pathway. He recalled his wandering thoughts instantly and gave his consent without the grace of readiness, then she bade him farewell and turned away. He stood meditatively a few minutes longer just where she left him, indignantly addressing some mental enquiries to a _ purely imaginery antagonist. Why was any honest effort for the good of others to be persistently sneered down. Must it not bring its own blessing, however ill-directed ? Had not butterflies, idle, mischievous nuisances as he—the antagonist—might be pleased to consider them, their place and work in creation as well as popular preachers ? Might not beauty, grace and winning ways prove in the end as great forces for good and evil as zeal, eloquence, or a Double First? What nght had anyone to carp and criticise and doubt? Or was it himself that he doubted ? The Vicar cut his meditations short at this point and hurried off to interview his builder. All this time the Seven of Spades held its place where Arbuthnot Corbett had posted it, with no result, hitherto, except that of affording cause for speculation to the Vicar’s visitors and some diversion to Mr. de Cressy. It was well-known in the parish that from nine till ten o’clock every morning the Vicar’s study was free to all comers; and Mrs. Goodliffe, trotting briskly to and fro on household errands was wont to shake her trim little head impatiently at the rabble of unscraped shoes that entered on this invitation. A very motley crew trod in them on one particular dirty morning some weeks later. ‘Leave the card up,” de Cressy had pleaded. ‘‘ Just this one hour longer.” ‘Then in had come a printer’s boy with damaged eye- sight wanting an order for some hospital ; a slatternly woman with a baby and a claim on some local charity; a decent woman with red eyes, to entreat the Vicar to try and get her husband to join the Blue Ribbon Army. ‘Then a burly “Fellowship Porter” who had taken the ribbon and found it didn’t agree with him, to consult on the best means of getting clear of his obligations. Of each newcomer did de Cressy solemnly demand, “‘ Have you ever seen that card before? Or one like it? Can you offer any suggestion as to how it came to be found in the vestry of St. Frido- lin’s?” To all of which he received equally solemn and decided negatives. ‘Then came a blank interval and then—Mrs. Damien ! Mr. Stannard rose ceremoniously to greet her, and de Cressy dropped into a chair blushing to the tips of his ears and immersed himself in a pile of reports as demure as a cat in a dairy. ‘“T have come to say good-bye. I am going away,” she began. “A friend of mine—the only relation I have in the world—wants me to go abroad with her and I don’t see how I can refuse.” She COMiICcaooks (CO)