The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Old Time English
General
The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Old Time English
Detective and mystery stories; Fiction; Ghost stories
Were there, then, no exceptions to this condition of awestruck
admiration? Yes; one at least there was in whose bosom the spell
of all-conquering passion soon thawed every trace of icy reserve.
While the rest of the world retained a dim sentiment of awe toward
Mr. Wyndham, Margaret Liebenheim only heard of such a feeling to
wonder that it could exist toward HIM. Never was there so
victorious a conquest interchanged between two youthful hearts--
never before such a rapture of instantaneous sympathy. I did not
witness the first meeting of this mysterious Maximilian and this
magnificent Margaret, and do not know whether Margaret manifested
that trepidation and embarrassment which distressed so many of her
youthful co-rivals; but, if she did, it must have fled before the
first glance of the young man's eye, which would interpret, past
all misunderstanding, the homage of his soul and the surrender of
his heart. Their third meeting I DID see; and there all shadow of
embarrassment had vanished, except, indeed, of that delicate
embarrassment which clings to impassioned admiration. On the part
of Margaret, it seemed as if a new world had dawned upon her that
she had not so much as suspected among the capacities of human
experience. Like some bird she seemed, with powers unexercised for
soaring and flying, not understood even as yet, and that never
until now had found an element of air capable of sustaining her
wings, or tempting her to put forth her buoyant instincts. He, on
the other hand, now first found the realization of his dreams, and
for a mere possibility which he had long too deeply contemplated,
fearing, however, that in his own case it might prove a chimera, or
that he might never meet a woman answering the demands of his
heart, he now found a corresponding reality that left nothing to
seek.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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