The Argosy — page 170: what you’re looking at

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

Divided. 155 their faded blue uniforms, the cabs and omnibuses jostling each other out of the way, the women, with heads enveloped in blue veils, rushing down the platform to catch the train; it was all a part of Paris—bright, impatient, sunshiny Paris. ‘‘ Pauvre petite,” said Monsieur Lenard compassionately. ‘‘ Pauvre petite.” He pushed a bundle of journals through the window of the com- partment—the /igaro, Fournal pour Rire, everything he could find that he thought might amuse her. Au revoir, au revoir,” he whispered, as the bell rang with a dis- cordant din. “If ever you are ready to come again—come.” There was a scramble, a shutting of doors; slowly the train steamed out of the station and passed out of the city, hastening its speed as though eager to leave it behind. Paris lay behind in the past; Camper waited, quiet and mono- tonous, in the future. When the husband and wife found themselves shut up together fora long téte-a-téte, an awkward shyness kept them for some time silent. | Raoul had taken a seat in the far corner of the compartment on the same side as his wife. His knitted brows and compressed lips might have shown Denise, had she understood him better, that he was pondering deeply and anxiously. But she only thought, ‘‘ How cross he looks!” and supposed that she was in such dire disgrace that he would not deign to speak to her. , Every instant that bore her away from beloved Paris, where she had been admired and féted to an extent that might have turned an older and wiser head than hers, made her more homesick and despondent. Then there was the humiliation! If only Raoul had been patient and sensible, and come to fetch her quietly, instead of rushing off in a rage to claim her before all her friends—and enemies! How they would laugh over the story! How they would sneer at her bourgeois husband whom she overheard Mademoiselle Clothilde speak of as ‘fa ploughboy !” ‘ Has it ever struck you what lamentably foolish trifles will put us into a fever of irritation when perhaps we are able to conduct our- selves pretty gallantly under serious trials? It is the little things that take us unawares, the tiny pin-pricks to our nerves that make us start and writhe as though we were stung bya gad fly. Then you will, perhaps, pardon my poor Denise for feeling unreasonably angry with, if not actually insulted by Raoul, on account of the clothes he WOre, She disliked ridicule, and by his outlandish attire he had brought it upon her. Having come to Paris in a hurry of distress and wrath, he had : CORNICLIOO cs) (SO) mn