DOI article:
D'Arcy, Ella: The pleasure-pilgrim
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21806#0064
6o The Pleasure-Pilgrim
Bullier’s, she had learned skating with this other. She was a Capital
shot, Hiram P. Ladd had taught her ; and he got glimpses of long
vistas of amourettes played in every State in America, and in every
country of Europe, since the very beginning, when, as a mere
child, elderly men, friends of her father’s, had held her on their
knee and fed her with sweetmeats and kisses. It was sickening to
think of; it was pitiable. So much youth and beauty tarnished :
the possibility for so much good chrown away. For if one could
only blot out her record, forget it, accept her for what she chose
to appear, a more endearing companion no man could desire.
V
It was a wet afternoon. Mayne had accompanied his wife and the
Baroness into Hamelin. “To take up aservant’s character, and ex-
postulate with a recalcitrant dressmaker,” he explained to Campbell,
and wondered what women would do to fall up their days, were it
not for the perennial villanies of dressmakers and dcmestic servants.
He himself was going to look in at the English Club ; wouldn’t
Campbell come too ? There was a fourth seat in the carriage.
But Campbell was in no social mood ; he feit his temper going all
to pieces ; a quarter of an hour of Mrs. Mayne’s society would
have brought on an explosion. He feit he must be alone ; yet
when he had read for half an hour in his room he wondered
vaguely what Lulie was doing ; he had not seen her since luncheon.
She always gave him her society when he could very well dispense
with it, but on a wet day like this, when a little conversation would
be tolerable, of course she stayed away. Then there came down the
long Rittersaal the tapping of high heels and a well-known knock
at his door.
“Am
Bullier’s, she had learned skating with this other. She was a Capital
shot, Hiram P. Ladd had taught her ; and he got glimpses of long
vistas of amourettes played in every State in America, and in every
country of Europe, since the very beginning, when, as a mere
child, elderly men, friends of her father’s, had held her on their
knee and fed her with sweetmeats and kisses. It was sickening to
think of; it was pitiable. So much youth and beauty tarnished :
the possibility for so much good chrown away. For if one could
only blot out her record, forget it, accept her for what she chose
to appear, a more endearing companion no man could desire.
V
It was a wet afternoon. Mayne had accompanied his wife and the
Baroness into Hamelin. “To take up aservant’s character, and ex-
postulate with a recalcitrant dressmaker,” he explained to Campbell,
and wondered what women would do to fall up their days, were it
not for the perennial villanies of dressmakers and dcmestic servants.
He himself was going to look in at the English Club ; wouldn’t
Campbell come too ? There was a fourth seat in the carriage.
But Campbell was in no social mood ; he feit his temper going all
to pieces ; a quarter of an hour of Mrs. Mayne’s society would
have brought on an explosion. He feit he must be alone ; yet
when he had read for half an hour in his room he wondered
vaguely what Lulie was doing ; he had not seen her since luncheon.
She always gave him her society when he could very well dispense
with it, but on a wet day like this, when a little conversation would
be tolerable, of course she stayed away. Then there came down the
long Rittersaal the tapping of high heels and a well-known knock
at his door.
“Am