I Forbid the Banns! — page 191: what you’re looking at

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

ON THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE. 181 more presentable than when you were here last. I hope it will do.’’ ‘‘Oh, of course, of course,’’ said he. ‘‘I’ll just go to the end of the corridor now and have a look at the boudoir for fear I should forgetit. I cannot understand how the painted festoons on the ceiling should be fading over the fireplace. No, no, you needn’t come with me, Mrs. Barwell.’’ He went quickly along the corridor and entered the oval room which his mother had furnished for her boudoir. But when he found himself standing on the parquet he did not con- centrate his attention upon the festoons which an Italian art- ist had painted on the ceiling; he stood silent—one hand still upon the handle of the door. Silent? No; he could hear his heart beating tumultuously. The thoughts that came to him overwhelmed him with their force; and yet all these thoughts had been suggested by the commonplace look upon the face of the old housekeeper, as she referred to the dor- mitory arrangements which she had been thoughtful enough to make, and by the mechanical way in which she had gone to open the door of the bedroom where Bertha was getting ready for dinner. There had been neither smile nor smirk upon the woman’s face. She had gone to open the door as she would have gone about the discharge of the most ordinary of her duties. Great Heavens! | And here he was with his heart beating so that he could count every beat, and his hand trembling so that the handle of the door shook beneath his hold. It was the awful assumption on the part of the house- keeper that the situation of the moment was one of the most ordinary in life that overwhelmed him. If she had even smirked, it would not have seemed so appalling. But she gave not the smallest suggestion that the situation contained the elements of anything beyond what was commonplace. (EC) He waited with the door slightly ajar, until he nesnd othe: