Avon Modern Short Story Monthly #36 — page 81: what you’re looking at

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

tee z we “it . oe Fug | HISTORICAL NIGHTS’ ENTERTAINMENT tt i a pF acs a es ee eee) Oe ee 8 es ha aes eee) be t Roe | eee. a YS ee Ue be te OF Pee LP Sih aoa) J a og a) its hig Pn oS ee) 6) Ve vad) y \ é se" ha* PY at ‘sik pA ue +a rs eet oA Ae ye tds rie a a RE epi a Sats 2 ee is yt a r ee Ge ea et Sars ey Sethe ete anus 2b aoe + ev ie ae vi Cun re Ale heat ye Sater rae ey Lie yo ew leee BS AS Ve sehr . 4 "4 4 ia 4 . » he > ay r eae to see what horse it was that was pacing in the street below, he beheld a man in a rich cloak, in whom at once he recognized the Duke, and he accounted that the dice of destiny had fallen. Himself unseen by that horseman, Giovanni drew back quickly. On the spur of the moment, he acted with a subtlety worthy of long premeditation. Antonia and he were by an odd fatality alone to- gether in that chamber of the mezzanine. He turned to her. “An odd fellow rides below here, tarrying as if expectant. I wonder should you know who he is.” Obeying his suggestion, she rose—a tall, slim child of some eighteen years, of a delicate, pale beauty, with dark, thoughtful eyes and long, black tresses, interwoven with jewelled strands of gold thread. She rustled to the window and looked down upon that cavalier; and, as she looked, scanning him intently, the Duke raised his head. Their eyes met, and she drew back with a little cry. “What is it?” exclaimed Giovanni. “It is that insolent fellow who stared at me last evening in the street. | would you had not bidden me look.” Now, whilst she had been gazing from the window, Giovanni, moving softly behind her, had espied a bowl of roses on the ebony table in the room’s middle. Swiftly and silently he had plucked a blossom, which he now held behind his back. As she turned from him again, he sent it flying through the window; and whilst in his heart he laughed with bitter hate and scorn as he thought of Gandia snatching up that rose and treasuring it in his bosom, aloud he laughed at her fears, derided them as idle. That night, in his room, Giovanni practised penmanship assidu- ously, armed with a model with which Antonia had innocently equipped him. He went to bed well pleased, reflecting that as a man lives so does he die. Giovanni Borgia, Duke of Gandia, had been ever an amiable profligate, a heedless voluptuary obeying no spur but that of his own pleasure, which should drive him now to his destruction. Giovanni Borgia, he considered further, was, as he had expressed it, the very apple of his father’s eye; and since, of his own accord, the Duke had come to thrust his foolish head into the noose, the Lord of Pesaro would make a sweet beginning to the avenging of his wrongs by drawing it taut. €omicbooks com