The Dugdale Millions — page 126: what you’re looking at

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

116 THE DUGDALE MILLIONS. this, Dick essayed to relieve it, and rushed into his first blunder. “1 had determined,’ * he said, after an efien, “on coming here to seck from you an explanation of your singular conduct toward myself.’’ Bessie resented the adjective. While the awkward silence had lasted she had been looking up the river, her face averted, but, with Dick’s words, she lifted it te him, her color rising and indignation shining in her lovely blue eyes. It was so like aman to charge upon a woman a fault that was his own. She had only re- sented his szugular treatment of herself, in a proper and womanly spirit. ‘‘Singular!’’ she repeated, sarcasm in hertones. ‘‘I did not know people regarded my conduct as sin- gular.” “It has been to me,’’ replied Dick, noting with ad- miration how pure was the profile of her face outlined against the dark deep blue of the sky. “‘I have been made to feel keenly the weight of your displeasure—”’ He hesitated long enough to give Bessie the sug- gestion that he was selecting his words with care. ‘‘And,’’ he went on, ‘‘so far as I am able to perceive, without good or sufficient reason.”’ Poor Dick! he had stumbled froin one blunder into another. In his nervousness, and in his determina- tion to arrive at an understanding, nerving himself for an effort, he had assumed a severity of tone and a sternness of manner he was far from intending. ‘‘Perhaps,’’ said Bessie, straightening herself up with an excess of dignity, ‘‘before we enter upon that expla- nation you are so pleasantly’’ (severe stress on “‘pleas- antly’’) ‘‘demanding, you will inform me who conferred upon you the authority you so frequently exercise to censure and reprimand me?”’ ‘‘T censure you—reprimand?’’ stammered Dick, overwhelmed, ‘‘surely you do not accuse me of such audacity.”’ 9 Comicbookks C@ 5}