A. M. Williamson and C. N. Williamson

“ As Lady Scarlett listened she knitted, with strong, predatory, relentless hands. Language, they say, is used to conceal thought. So, it occurred to me, is knitting. I felt, watching her as a wise mouse should watch a cat, that she was making up her mind to some action more beneficial to herself than to Terry. But for my life I couldn't guess what. She seemed to weave a knitted screen between my mind and hers!
In the end, however, she announced that for two hundred pounds a week her family could, apparently, blot itself temporarily out of existence, in the suite of the garden court. ”

“ I wish I had. When I want a thing, it's in my nature to want it for good and all. I want the thing I wanted before the war now as much as ever. That's the principal trouble with me, I think: the hopelessness of everything, the uselessness of the things you can get.”
“Can't you manage to want something you might possibly get?” I asked.
He smiled faintly.
“That's much the same advice that the doctors have given, the advice this Sir Humphrey Hale of the Carstairs will give to-morrow, I'm sure. 'Try to take an interest in things as they are.' Good heavens, that's just what I can't do.” ”

“ She had no other home than the ruinous palace; no companion, no servant save the old woman who had once been her nurse; as for money, barely enough for the meagre support of two, and the poor charities for which she was willing to sacrifice the few small luxuries that might have been hers. So she lived, a Princess among the peasants, sharing their life, scarcely better housed or fed than they, yet happy because she loved all and was loved by all.
“But many men must have wished to marry her, and take her away from a life so unsuitable,” Holstead began. ”

“ The last Lord Scarlett, your elder brother, went to Australia because that actress he was madly in love with had a husband who popped up and made himself disagreeable. Oh, I can prove everything against you! And I know where the true Lady Scarlett is at this minute. You can prove nothing against me. You don't know where your son is, and you won't know until you hand that poor child from Australia over to Captain Burns and me. ”

“ When the count had been made by us and envelopes neatly piled in stacks of twenty-four on a large desk hastily cleared for action, Terry sent his servant away. And then began the fun!
But we hadn't gone far when, between laughs, we felt the pricks of conscience. Alas for all these people who burned to possess our moated grange “practically free,” at its absurdly low rent! And the moated grange didn't exist. Not one of the unfortunate wretches would so much as get an answer.
They were not all nouveaux riches, by any means, these eager senders of letters and telegrams. ”

“ We began before luncheon, and, thanks more to the almost desperate energy of Jim, Stan and Loveland than to feminine art, the fragrant branches were wreathed with shining chains, glittering with colored glass balls, oranges, apples and gilded nuts before the gong sounded for luncheon at two o'clock. ”

“ My flat is in the same house with the Carstairs', a charming old house in which I couldn't afford to live if Dame Caroline—title given by me, not his gracious majesty—hadn't taught me the gentle, well-paid art of brightening. If you don't know the story of Roger Fane, Shelagh Leigh, and me, Princess de Miramare, née Elizabeth Courtenaye, you can't know what a brightener is, because Mrs. Carstairs invented the métier, or profession, expressly for my benefit.
You might imagine that a brightener was some sort of a patent polisher for stoves, metal, or even boots. ”

“ As Paolo read on, he suddenly drew from under his robe a long, gleaming knife, which he handed to the man nearest.
Then the full horror of the scene he was witnessing broke with a shock into Holstead’s consciousness. He realised in a flash that the Princess was, even at that instant, in deadly peril; that Don Paolo had so aroused the avarice of his dupes that they were ready to go to the length of murder; he understood now the awful meaning of the reference to an “innocent soul” that must be sacrificed to propitiate the infernal powers. ”

“ Nearly all historic houses are what the agents always call 'rich in old oak.' But what about those 'exquisite oriels,' those famous fireplaces, those stairways, those celebrated ceilings and corbels—whatever they are? No one house, outside our brains, can have them all. ”

“ Just for an instant a small, hatchet face peered at me, and vanished as if its owner had been snatched away by a strong hand; but I had time to say to myself, “Like father like son!” And I smiled in remembering that Jim Courtenaye had called the Scarletts' heir a “venomous little brute.”
At last came the day when the Princess Avalesco, Mrs. Dobell, and a maid were to motor down and take possession of Dun Moat. Terry—much thanked through the telephone for supplying the place with servants—was on the spot before them. ”