The Argosy — page 213: what you’re looking at

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

196 Fohn Davidson. of comprehending the cruel feeling of laceration such dragging forth, with rough grasp, into light, of a delicate and dear idol can cause. He had got into the way of expecting such questions from people of this sort, and of setting his lips and bracing himself up to answer steadily, but this had decended on him just now like a thunderbolt. All the colour flooded his brow; but, before he had had time to reply, a strange, soft, sweet change had swept into Victoria’s face. “Hark,” she said, pausing and holding up her hand in a listening attitude. ‘Oh, Mr. Davidson, hark ! ” They had just turned into a narrow, very quiet lane, only some fifty yards long, a short cut between two busy streets. It went in a sort of semi-circle, and at the point where Victoria had paused, where there was a deserted two-storied house, came the dull roar of machinery in motion. At Miss Egerton’s abrupt call to harken, Mr. Davidson stood, cross- ing his arms with a rapid movement and bending his head a little. There was something going, some great piece of machinery, louder than all the rest, just inside the window, with a thud and a whirl, then a rasping sound and a whirl again. Slowly Mr. Davidson raised his. face, all the pain and embarrassment of a few moments ago gone from it, a strange smile hovering about his lips, his eyes slightly dim. “Yes, I hear,” he said, in a tone with a soft ring in it; ‘itis a fine sound ; I have listened to it before. That is my loom.” He had turned his face round, in his strange slow way, without altering his bent attitude. Miss Egerton, her beautiful features radiant, met his eyes. A stranger and softer expression than any flashed into: both their faces and was gone. Miss Egerton started and went hurrying down the lane, Mr. John Davidson following her. Neither of them spoke. Miss Egerton was trembling, she could not: have told why ; an odd choking sensation at her throat ; feeling, too, as if a dozen years had come and gone since she entered the lane feeling as though the old life were long since dead, and this, a new era, had now begun for her. Mr. Davidson was pale and grave as when she had waved him to stop at the entrance to the cross-street. Swift as lightning a totai revulsion of feeling came to Miss Egerton. What zuas the explanation of her own intense emotion? How dared this man call it forth in her? She abruptly burst into a little peal ot laughter. ‘Fancy my listening to a loom under a window!” she cried. Mr. John Davidson paused, raised his head with a jerk and looked blankly before him; then turned a searching and rapid glance round at the girl, as though this had fallen upon him with such incongruity that he was half unable to comprehend. Suddenly he paced on with increased rapidity, a terrible change coming to his eyes. And he had spoken to this girl of his loom! They were now at the door of Mr. Hattley’s factory. Not a word CORNICLOOKS (E(0) m