Ainslee's Magazine, February 1913 — page 151: what you’re looking at

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

the talk of the hotel; almost as much as the coming ball. Even so worldly and sea- soned an old soldier as Colo- nel Trench-Gadsby, but lately retired from his majesty’s service, and who had experienced some thirty-odd years of fighting and women in India, was frank in confessing to me that he con- sidered Mrs. Mawlyn’s daily conduct as “simply scandalous.” Mrs. Mawlyn’s flirtation with young Cyril Reeves hav- ing progressed with daring rapidity dur- ing the last week, we all felt sorry for Mawlyn. “Shocking bad form, old chap—these hotel flirtations,’ declared the colonel. “IT never for the life of me could see the charm of making love in public,” he added, as we stood smoking together on the broad, high veranda of the Grand Hotel Beausite-Victoria, look- ing down upon the Mediterranean, deep blue as a sea of molten sapphire. Far below us lay nestled, beside a turquoise cove, the picturesque, sleepy little vil- lage of La Brisette. It was one of those rare, balmy morn- ings in February on the Riviera, the air fragrant with the perfume of acres of violets, and spicy with the scent of the eucalyptus trees. Below us rolled away the hillside, unfurling itself like some giant rug from the Orient, gayly pat- terned in beds of violets, roses, and mi- mosa, and deep-bordered by dark fir trees, until the end of the rug, a mile below, dipped its fringe in the limpid aS FD 4 WY “9 € OSL bb Wy waters of the turquoise cove that lay like a jewel protected from the open sea. At our backs, in stern contrast to all this, rose and fell away to the far horizon a grim, cold wilderness of mountains, their jagged summits clear cut against the cioudless blue sky. The colonel tapped out the ashes of his pipe deftly against his heel, restuffed his favorite brierwood, dusted the stray grains of a chosen mixture from the ° knees of his immaculate white-flannel trousers, bent his clean-featured, hand- some head over the flame of a solid, English wax vesta, and straightening his slim, wiry body to its full height of six feet, smiled quietly, and continued in his soft voice, high-keyed, but never harsh: “IT say! What a silly ass young what’s-his-name must be to be led around by Mrs. Mawlyn. She is pretty, [ll admit. Rippin’ figgar! But she’s ye-ars his senior. She’s all of eight and twenty, mark my word, and ['ll wager he’s not over one and twenty. I say! Poor Mawlyn. did get a cropper, didn’t he, *when he married her? Rather! Rattlin’ good sort, Mawlyn! You ought to meet.him. Met him last week at the billiard tournament. Wish you'd been there. We had a peg to- gether, Mawlyn and Lord Rick, and the old admiral, and the archduke. I say, you mustn’t give it away that you know the archduke’s identity. He’s, as I told you, traveling incognito under the name of Mr. von Reisen. Mawlyn told us a most clever story about a nigger—and— COMMUC NOOK