Page:A strange, sad comedy (IA strangesadcomedy00seawiala).pdf/245

Rh devices to ensnare Mr. Romaine, never for a moment suspected that the graceful and tactful Madame de Fonblanque's "business" with Mr. Romaine was an attempt to entrap him of a nature much more desperate and barefaced than Ethel would have dreamed of.

But as Mr. Romaine looked into Ethel's rosy, fresh face, he saw a great deal of good there. She would not bedevil him as the French woman had done. She was amiable even in her disappointments, and if things had been otherwise, and she could have shared with him the town house, and the country house, and the carriage, would have tended him faithfully and kindly. Some dim idea of rewarding her by making her an offer as soon as he was clear of the French woman dawned upon his mind. Ethel, for her part, read a new look of gentleness in his expressive black eyes—and his hand-clasp was positively tender. But his pain showed in his glance—there was something agonizing in his eyes as Ethel's met his. And fascinated by them she gazed into them with a strange and pathetic feeling that it was not "good-night" she was saying, but "good-by." Mr. Romaine himself had something of this feeling