The Argosy — page 97: what you’re looking at

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

82 Mr. Gordon : Specialist. the tall palms and ferns, and the faintly discernible outlines of engravings in massive old-fashioned frames, crowded a wholly new set of impressions upon her narrow intellect. A beautiful fernery opened out of the waiting-room, and the eesthetically-toned furniture of the room itself, the piles of books and periodicals on the tables, the perfect set of photographs of Roman statues and remains on the walls, and the strong odour of the lilies and hyacinths that stood about in quaint bronze and china pots, all served still more to confuse her senses. Mrs. Farringdon Griffiths, however, bustled about the room in active valuation of its contents. ‘The carpet alone must have stood him in “4,50,” she announced. ‘‘ And the curtains! I never saw anything hke them. The man must be perfectly rolling in riches. ’Pon my word, Virginia ; but you have done well for yourself at last.” There was a sound of the hall door opening and closing, and then the grave man-servant appeared once more and bore away Mrs. Farring- don Griffiths’ card on a massive silver salver. “This way, madam.” Virginia obediently followed her mother; she felt faint and sick, and would fain have remained behind cowering in the recesses of one of the great velvet chairs. They had recrossed the hall. A door atthe further end was thrown open. ‘They stood in a large, light room, and before them was Mr. Gordon. ‘That was all that Virginia saw. But Mrs. Farringdon Griffiths’ bodily eye in a moment had trans- ferred to her mental vision the whole insupportable situation. The wide, almost bare room, with its Persian carpet and Morris wall-paper undisturbed but for a few choice prints; the couple of Chippendale cabinets, the long low divan. And last, but not least, smallest but most prominent piece of furniture in the whole apartment, set in the window, surrounded by a net-work of wheels, was the unmistakable velvet up- holstered chair of the dentist, with its considerate head-rest, its historical white crocheted antimacassar, its horrible machinery for elevation and depression. She stood motionless, gazing. Virginia had advanced, holding out her narrow gloved hand. But something in her mother’s attitude struck her, and she, too, stood still. Her eye slowly followed her mother’s round the room, and at last rested also on the chair. ‘There was an awful pause, and then, with a faintness at the heart, she sank in a heap on the divan. Mrs. Farringdon Griffiths’ voice broke the stillness that. followed. In her self-control and command of the circumstances there was something little short of heroic. “T hear that you have a theory that deafness is often connected with the teeth,” she said, in a metallic voice; ‘and I have come to ask your advice. I am becoming very deaf,” she added, with ECORNICLOOKS (SO)