A Heart's Bitterness — page 42: what you’re looking at

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

84 A HEART’S BITTERNESS. ‘€Violet!” . She took the parasol, but ignored the other extended hand. ‘< Thanks,” she said, as to a stranger. Then suddenly a group of bustling sight-seers crowded into the rotunda with exclamations and questions, and Vio- let and her love of other days fell apart. With trembling, impetuous steps, which she longed to render firm and dignified, Violet hastened along the gallery to her waiting servants, and then to her carriage. Surely this was the irony of fate—that she should meet him again just as she had learned that love was living for him yet—that she should meet him when love would be a crime, and therefore an impossibility. ‘‘ But it is better so,” said Violet to herself. ‘‘If he had found me three months ago, he, too, might have courted me for my money, and won me by deceit; and to be de- ceived by him would surely be the most bitter thing on earth.” | Receiving no orders, the coachman drove slowly along the Bois de Bologne, but all during the drive, and at the opera that evening Violet was striving to find a grave wide and deep enough in her heart to bury her lost love. The next afternoon the Montressor barouche was drawn up at the Hotel Splendide, waiting for the Countess of Leigh to join her Aunt Montressor and Lady Clare. Un.- der the arcade, a few paces from the carriage, stood a hand- some young man, looking idly about. Lord Leigh, turning from the carriage-steps, saw him, and went to him with ex- tended hand. : ‘‘ Well met, Keith. Glad to see you again.” _ Keith was just returning this greeting when Violet came down the hotel steps, preceded by a footman carrying her parasol and wrap, and followed by her maid, holding her mistress’ little gold-mounted caba. Violet took her place beside the Countess Montressor, her aunt, and engaged by her greetings, saw neither Lord Keith nor her husband. «'Thereis Miss Violet Ainslie,” cried Lord Keith; “ what a ee Sole to find her in Paris. I wonder where she is stay- ing?” *¢ Acquainted ?” ‘“‘Long ago. She was then the most captivating child, as now she has bloomed into the loveliest of women.” (E(@) cEomicbooks