The Argosy — page 69: what you’re looking at

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

56 “ Boy’s Love” and ‘Old Man.” him if she accepted the bargain which he was only too willing to make. She knew him well enough to be sure that, in offering her his love, he was humble enough to be content witha less ardent feel- ing on her part. He would willingly take anything she had to give; respect, liking, mere acquiescence even. And would not these, from the woman to whom he had given his full and first affection, be as good an exchange as the eager acceptance of his position and name which he would very likely meet with from some other girl were Rose to refuse himP She would, and she was sure she could, satisfy Lord Alfred, whose nature was to give enthusiastically. If she concluded the bargain, no one should have the slightest ground for dissatisfaction except herself, perhaps ; for, in a matter of love, no woman is satisfied to give a half measure of affection, any more than to receive it, and can more easily put up with the latter condition than the former. And as she argued this to and fro in her mind, she came to the open space which lies outside Seamouth town and leads to the station, and standing a moment by the roadway about to cross, there passed. her a couple of slow-rolling, shabby Seamouth flys, piled with Indian luggage, deck-chairs, and all the paraphernalia of a journey ; while an ayah’s piteous face and figure was plainly discernible before Miss Grantham had time to lower the crimson parasol and shut out the commonplace little cavalcade. “IT could never face that,” she said convulsively, hurrying on with wide-open eyes that saw nothing. And at that moment the thing was settled, and Rose Grantham mentally accepted Lord Alfred Swan. Om **T poNn’r want any more chocolates unless you can find them with almonds inthem, I’m tired of cream,” Blanche Grantham was saying . to Captain Thompson at dessert that evening. Lord Alfred was dining at the Hill, and Thompson and Bostock had somehow joined the party too, having walked up with the girls from the tennis-ground. Violet and Bostock were fighting their last “set” over again. It had been a capital meeting, and everyone had so much to say about it that there was no occasion, even for conversational purposes, to ask Rose where she had spent the afternoon. ‘‘Swanny” was smiling and incredulously content with Miss Grantham’s manner, which was. a return to the old, half-patronising, wholly charming interest in him, and his sayings and doings which had existed between them before he began to pose as a seriously-intentioned lover. He wondered whether she could possibly be sorry for the indifferent way in which she had cut himthat afternoon ; or whether bychance she had come to: the knowledge of his painstaking study of Kinglake’s ‘‘ Crimean War,” CORNICE OOOKS (EO)