The Argosy — page 259: what you’re looking at

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

242 The Missing Rubies. “But what if he has consented to give her up? Ha, ha, ha!” laughed old Redburn, with a grating sound that made his hearers start. ‘‘ I suppose you never thought of that, did you? Eh?” He was not a pleasant sight to look upon just then, with his fiery old eyes shining out of his yellow face. “No; we never thought of that,” the Colonel admitted, rather — blankly. ‘Well, I did. I remembered that the scamp had good blood in his veins, and I made up my mind to appeal to his sense of honour. That Milton woman gave me his address. I went straight to his office in Aldersgate Street, and asked for a private interview.” ‘And you saw him P” the Colonel asked. “T saw him, with good results. I reminded him that when Beatrice gave him her promise she was without prospects, almost alone in the world. I asked whether it was fair to entrap a young girl into an engagement with a man whose name was not unstained ? I told him that her father would have required another kind of suitor for his child, and added that I was that father’s representative. And, lastly, I declared that if he still held Beatrice to that childish promise of hers, it would cost her a handsome fortune. Not a shil- ling of mine, I said, should go to a husband who had a single spot upon his character.” Again he glanced round proudly, as if expecting applause. But his two listeners were utterly silent. ‘He looked as if he had been shot,” went on the old man re- morselessly. ‘‘ Turned a ghastly white, and could hardly get out his words. He said something about my unwarrantable language, but agreed to write to Beatrice this very night and set her free. That was all. When he had said that, he fairly turned me out of the room and shut the door in my face. But I had got all that I wanted. Ha, ha! I was not going to let the girl take her fate into her own hands, as she threatened to do to-day !” * But how will she bear this ?” asked the Colonel, speaking at last. “Bear it? Didn’t you say, yourself, that a girl of nineteen may change her mind twenty times a year? Her fancy for Earle was sheer obstinacy.” ‘Vou have taken a course which will make her more obstinate still. Believe me, Redburn, it would have been wiser to let that fancy die a natural death.” ‘Pooh! When she gets his letter it will be all over.” Colonel Lindrick shook his head. “Tf you had not opposed her, she would probably have got tired of him. ‘Time, and the free use of money, and a knowledge of the world, would have taught her to set a higher value on herself. But now ——’ “So you think I have made a mistake, do you? What does Alma say ?” COMIC OOOKS. GO