A Daughter of Delilah — page 192: what you’re looking at

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

NO. 33 HAWTHORNE AVENUE, RIDGEWAY, N. J. 183 pictures in their lavish settings, the richly embroidered silk curtains, the bric-a-brac and:ornaments, he knew in- tuitively were the gifts of his deluded son. ‘‘She is evidently of musical tastes,’’ he sneered to him- self. ‘‘A mandolin, a harp, a piano, and a zither! But of course the woman has been a singer and a dancer before the footlights! Now I can mentally conjure before me the creature with whom I have to deal! <A bold-eyed, florid beauty, with the arts and cunning of Satan!”’ He sniffed at the delicately scented air, for the subtlety of the siren’s presence was felt everywhere. All at once there was the rustle of drapery; the silk em- broidered portieres that screened a farther chamber were gently parted, revealing a woman, the most beautiful and bewitching he had ever beheld. Jabez Alston rose to his feet, saying, politely: ‘‘Miss Isabel Russell?’’ To himself he: thought: ‘‘By heaven, I don’t wonder at the poor boy’s infatuation !”’ The siren advanced toward him with a half timidity that was charming, every movement one of studied grace, and murmured in musical accents. “You are Edgar’s father—I know it, because he has told me of you, and how you hate me!”’ There was a piteous note in the concluding words, and the financier courteously conducted Isabel to a lounge, for she had paused before him, a pathetic pleading in her luminous eyes. | ‘‘Tmpossible, madame,’’ he said. ‘‘How could I hate you, when I have, never seen you until this moment? It is true that I have felt some alarm concerning my son’s love Gomicbooks (E(0)