The Argosy — page 339: what you’re looking at

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

318 The Missing Rubies. Godwin’s thoughts reverted to old Corder ; and Beatrice, hardly knowing why, had suddenly remembered the noble, pale face and sad eyes of Mr. Vordenberg. “There is an unsuspected heroine very near me at this moment,” he said, with a look that brought a faint tinge of pink into the girl’s soft cheek. Just then, Harriet came gliding quickly back again, and Godwin saw that he was not to have another chance of confidential talk that evening. But there would be other chances by-and-by ; he meant to come often to this pleasant house, and later on, when Mrs. Milton had learnt to put confidence in him, he might get many opportunities of having Beatrice all to himself. lLater on still, if he found that there was no disappointment in sounding the depths of this girl’s heart— but that, indeed, was going a great deal too far. This fresh, unworldly kind of friendship was quite enough for the present, and he had no mind to strain his mental vision by gazing hard into the future. And yet, although he was “beginning again,” he had not entirely done with the past. It takes a long while to tear up an old love by the roots, especially when those roots have grown with a man’s growth and spread over his whole life; and he could not think of Alma Lindrick and her last letter, without a sharp pain. JBut, as the early summer days came and went, and he began to get accustomed to his work in the office, and even to feel an ever-increasing interest in the business he had set himself to learn, the pain gradually became less ; and the new life, with its plans and hopes, left him little leisure for brooding over the old. “You are getting on fast, Godwin,” said Mr. Corder, one day. He had quickly fallen into the habit of calling the young man by his christian name, and seemed to feel a pleasure in the sound of it. “I hardly thought that you would so soon learn to run in a new groove. And you are looking better, ay, and brighter, than you did when you came to me two months ago.” “And I feel better and brighter, thanks to you,” Godwin replied. ‘* Oh, there are thanks due to other people, I fancy. By the way, I heard Miss Ward saying that she had never seen a play in her life. Will you take her and Mrs. Milton to see the JZerchant of Venice this evening? They won’t care about being escorted by an old fogie like myself.” Godwin complied, readily enough, and so it came to pass that one or two of his old acquaintances saw him enter the Lyceum that night with two ladies. The three seated themselves in the stalls; and there was something about Godwin Earle’s aspect which made one man say to another that ‘‘ Earle’s affairs must be looking up again.” Earle himself, in an irreproachable dress-suit, and with a dainty button-hole, was looking as well as he had ever done in his palmy days. Better, perhaps, for adversity often has a refining influence on a man’s face, although it frequently destroys the beauty of woman. CONNICLIOO KS. EOL ———_ Oe _—