'Love at first sight', of which he had
often read and often written, was then a reality! It could be as mutual,
too, as Romeo's and Juliet's. But how awkward that Juliet should be
married and her husband a Bill Sykes in broad-cloth!
II
Mrs. Glamorys herself gave 'At Homes', every Sunday afternoon, and so, on
the morrow, after a sleepless night mitigated by perpended sonnets, the
love-sick young tutor presented himself by invitation at the beautiful
old house in Hampstead. He was enchanted to find his heart's mistress
set in an eighteenth-century frame of small-paned windows and of high
oak-panelling, and at once began to image her dancing minuets and
playing on virginals. Her husband was absent, but a broad band of velvet
round Winifred's neck was a painful reminder of his possibilities.
Winifred, however, said it was only a touch of sore throat caught in the
garden. Her eyes added that there was nothing in the pathological
dictionary which she would not willingly have caught for the sake of
those divine, if draughty moments; but that, alas! it was more than a
mere bodily ailment she had caught there.
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