E. L. White

“ For, as the bridal procession drew nearer, Collier stared at her with hypnotized fascination. At last he knew her—as she really was. For he saw that the face of Laura was, in miniature, the replica of the gigantic face of the congregation—inhuman—artificial—appalling.
It was the quintessence of realization. Like a wild creature, enslaved in the snare, he strove impotently to escape. Something, older than Adam, freer than the wind, blinder than instinct, raged within him. Even now—even while the bride advanced—it was not too late. ”

“ Breathing heavily, Quality cleared his throat to ask a question.
“What was the charge?”
Surely the woman must notice the treacherous quiver of his voice! Her answer seemed to be delayed for an eternity.
“The charge, m’sieur?—He was a spy!”
“Ah!”
Quality sank down upon a bristly horsehair chair the crocheted antimacassar slipping down behind his back. He looked around him with eyes of sick loathing. The clicking sound of madame’s needles maddened him; he had watched the incessant flash of steel for so many long-drawn-out evenings of strain. ”

“ She knew that the picture gallery was near her—around her. Piercing the red shadows of her prison with burning eyes she thought she discerned the filmy outlines of a hat—the hat of a modern woman. But she could not reach it. It was outside!
In a wild fury she strained and tore at the plank. As it finally opened a dark cavity was disclosed. Into the depths they pushed a man—the man with the hunted eyes and dread white face. The bay of the voices outside grew deeper, and the man looked around him at the sound with the stare of a trapped animal. ”

“ The glow faded from Leslie's face. It was always like this, the eager throb of welcome ending in the formal handshake of farewell.
"Are you going away for Christmas?" she asked.
"I shall probably pad the hoof. Moors."
"Moors! Fine. I'd love to do that. Just sun and wind and no one to see you but God."
"If you wish to test that theory, just try stealing a sheep. My word, you've a ripe, old-fashioned cold! Don't forget to take a flask of brandy." ”

“ The ambassador beamed, chuckled, and stood up. The greenhorn, deferentially rising as his elder rose, felt his hand clasped in two warm, friendly ones.
“She shall have her card, too,” said the kindly old man. “I congratulate you, and I congratulate her also. Since the world began a lover or a husband has been the ordained specialty for a woman. It is old-fashioned but natural; and not only human but divine. The right man is the only proper specialty for the right kind of woman.” ”

“ Before him was the officer seemingly magnified to unhuman stature, in long, belted coat and spiked helmet. His eyes, blue and polar raked the room. His voice, sharp and metallic, gave the word of command. He was no man, but merely a vehicle of inexorable justice—a machine that has found its range.
Slowly, slowly, Quality arose to his feet. He stretched out his hands.
Arose—only to sink back in his seat. For, at the sound of a woman’s laugh, he realized that he was but the spectator in another’s drama. ”

“ There were many forms moving about that dim room, but Lady Rosemary could not take them in at first. Her attention was attracted by a nearer object. Lying on her shoulder, fastening together the folds of a tartan-plaid, was the large silver brooch, whose description she had supplied to Pepper with the accuracy of a lost-property official.
She drew a breath of wonder. Acting on an impulse, she crossed to the dim oval mirror that hung slanting on the wall. She looked at herself. Then she fell back with a cry. ”

“ All the same, Nelson looked very grave. "But we must hurry back to your cottage before there is anyone stirring."
They walked along silently, hand in hand.
"What are you thinking of?" asked Fay presently.
"The future. One day you'll grow homely and I'll grow fat, and people will wonder what that absurd old married couple can see in the other. But you will be seeing me as I am to-day, while to me you'll always be a slim, golden-haired fairy. And that's midsummer magic!" ”

“ The sound of her whisper was terrible. In the moonlight her face appeared to be blanched to a greenish-white hue. Involuntarily, Quality saw, in a lightning flash of clairvoyance, the white, dripping face of a peasant boy, with wolfish eyes glowing yellow, as he felt the edge of his axe with tremulous finger.
“Ah, m’sieur, our last night together!” Inspired by an unusual affection, madame pressed his arm. “Tomorrow, you will be gone. But what of me? Helas! what of me?”
“Your” Quality strove to speak naturally. ”

“ As she caught the hunted glare of his eyes she felt the swift pang of remorse she had experienced in the midst of the exhilaration and excitement of her first otter hunt. One against many! A pang contracted her heart.
The shadows wiped out the face, and she noticed, with dull curiosity, that two of the maidens were grovelling on the floor, groping among the rushes, which they piled up in high heaps. Then she found she was with them, helping them to raise a plank that gave under her shaking fingers. ”

“ The clouds were rolling away, and against a strip of lemon-green sky, Sirius showed faintly, as a point of silver wire. A thrush, on a naked copper-beech, burst into its recurrent phrase.
Bolingbroke consulted his watch.
“Ought to be over. Lord, we're a pair of precious churchyard ghouls, on the gloat.”
“I know.” Wicks spoke deprecatingly. “But I understand that this operation can only give partial relief—merely a prolongation of misery. God knows I wish for no man's death!”
“And God knows I do!” Bolingbroke gripped Wicks's shoulder and spoke in a sharpened tone. ”

“ So he partitioned each room into three, filched odd fragments therefrom, which were kitchen and bathroom, and gave each its own front door. And the rent of the house was the rent of each flat thereof.
Leslie took four wide strides which brought her up flush with the yellow wall.
"George," she said vehemently, "if anyone could look down—down, this city must seem like a black fly-paper, all buzzing with wretched little limed folks!"
He laughed as her voice broke in a croak.
"You've the grandfather of all the colds. Better not talk, old dear. You've got to be fit for Christmas." ”

“ Had the dot been a hairbreadth lower where would he have fallen? He was assailed with the sudden giddiness of one who looks down into space, at the mere sight of two inches of blank paper at the bottom of the chart.
Where? He was still asking himself the question, when he heard a rustle at the church door—caught some glimpse of shimmering white. He could not see plainly. He seemed to be standing on a thin crust over nothingness. Was it Laura? The tension was growing unbearable—akin to mental and spiritual vivisection. At any moment the end might come. ”

“ The ambassador regarded the greenhorn. From his awkward appearance no one could have expected him to talk so well. Perhaps here was, in spite of his exterior, a young man worth advising.
“Very good,” said the ambassador, “very good indeed. But you must remember that to attain that ideal you must make yourself an all-round musician. You must not put too much time or energy upon any one phase of your art. You must study the history of music, the development of its methods. You must attain some measure of skill upon every known instrument. ”

“ Isn't that Parson's, the lawyer's, garden next door?"
Fay stopped her slaughter, to glare with real murder in her eye at several small birds nailed to a tree.
"Fetch that tin!" she commanded. "A good thing they are so lively after they're dead!"
She gloated over the snails when Nelson set them loose over the lawyer's lettuce-bed. He shrank in the commission of his crime, for the plants were young and luscious.
"Eat!" cried the fairy, waving her wand. "Eat till you—bust!" ”

“ How furiously her needles flew! In just such manner must her forbears have sat, knitting and counting in the blood-sodden days of the Revolution.
“But, madame”—Quality’s voice was vibrant with horror—“how can you call it equal? It is inconceivable that a woman, with a woman’s heart beating within her breast, should sell a life merely for money!” ”

“ Douglas Burns had a flat among the chimney-pots, with an armchair, a flying-pan, and a varied assortment of pipes. Unlike George Webb, he offered no surface attractions, but presented a problem in raining to discover what went to his making.
A shortish, square-built man, with a rough-hewn face and a quiet voice, yet a fairy, for all that—one of the scientific genus who unite oceans and remove mountains. In other words, an engineer.
When Leslie had inherited her legacy, she had made no difference in her life. ”

“ Yet I saw him, two minutes ago, swaggering down the street, flower in his buttonhole and twirling his stick, as though he was going smash for the good of his health. It was fine, though!” His face brightened. “That buttonhole, now! The spirit of bravado. He may be a scamp, swindler—what you like—but you can't deny he's a man!”
May Wicks colored with exasperation.
“Really, haven't you troubles enough of your own to look after, without raving about that rogue? You exhaust my patience. Why don't you go up to Woodruff House to find out what's happening there?” ”

“ The second had passed her by and left her unscathed. She was totally unconscious that to her had been vouchsafed the mystery of a revelation. The revelation of a wandering soul, which, sent spinning through countless ages in its quest of development to Life or Death, had been arrested, for an infinitesimal fraction of space, in its course of retrogradation, and whirled back to the moment when it had attained the zenith of its powers. ”

“ Woman—the bound and cloistered sex—was not a prisoner. Many a bride had drawn back at the eleventh hour, and radiated in the limelight of newspaper publicity. He knew now that Laura did not love him. The certainty that she merely respected his wealth became his, with the recognition of the knowledge that he did not love her. ”

“ At last Quality had heard the thrill of emotion in her voice. Looking up, he detected a bead of moisture in her eyes. The sight of her sorrow only added to the horror. On top of her calm recital of the crime, such sympathy for the juvenile monster was nauseating.
“Your young brother must be a unique specimen,” he said stiffly, speaking with an effort.
“Not at all. Like all the rest of us. Like you, perhaps. Certainly, like me!”
A pleasant family history. To steady his nerves. Quality fingered his papers feverishly, repeating the while his magic formula: “Tomorrow, I go home.” ”

“ We’re certainly grown better-looking now. Good crop of hair—not half her own, I'll be bound! And, mercy, what a figure! Imagine her in a Directoire!”
“Should be sorry to,” was the non-committal answer, as the doctor glanced from the sturdy grace and noble proportions of the portrait to the tightly corsetted form of Rosemary.
“Thank Heavens, I didn’t live then,” continued Lady Rosemary complacently. “Those weird clothes don’t give chances. Aren’t they ghastly? That tight, stiff bodice and bulgy skirt, and that plaid arrangement caught up with a brooch the size of a plaster!” ”

“ The eyes vanished and he was gazing into the peaty pool, hearing the limpid gurgle of the sweet water—feeling the cool air stirring in his hair. Woman or pool—he knew not which was which. For both were Nature. ”

“ Since George had failed them, they had sent a worthier champion, who would hear her dumb voice and see through locked doors.
Burns marched directly to the mantel-shelf which held the sole photograph of Leslie—a snap with the sun full upon her nose, making a white blob of it, yet joyous with her own attractive grin and breeze-ruffled hair.
He looked both sheepish and sentimental as he put it inside his breast-pocket. "Going to borrow you for the week-end, little girl. Walk will do you good." ”

“ Laughing with delight, Fay slipped into Nelson's arms.
"Sure?"
"Certain sure. We'll have to get married."
"Um! You haven't ten thousand a year."
"No, but I'm handsome."
In the middle of a kiss, Nelson stopped and held her away at arm's length.
"Woman, tell me the truth, eye to eye and heart to heart!"
"I will. When you look at me like that, I feel like glass. Edgar, I swear I have never kissed a man before!"
"Good! But that's nothing. Fay—Fay darling, what have you done with my pink tulips?" ”

“ He's been known to do funny things sometimes.”
“And it would be a funny thing,” sneered Wicks. “Who's likely to give £500 for me? I'm not a competition sweet-pea, nor yet a prize story.”
As he spoke, he glanced in the glass. In the setting sunlight, with frowning brows and folded arms, he might have been Napoleon on board the Bellerophon.
“A woman always expects a man to succeed,” he said, “but women are poor judges of conditions. The greatest is prone to failure.... Take Bolingbroke! It's common talk that he's on the verge of ruin. ”

“ Lady Rosemary stifled a yawn. “What a perfectly ghastly idea! Pity she lived then. She was wasted in those days. She’d make a ripping Suffragette nowadays. Imagine her scrapping with a policeman!”
Her speech jarred on Pepper.
“She was a noble woman,” he said warmly. “What modern woman would have the courage to bear the pain of having her arm forcibly snapped in two. Just think——”
A faint cry from Lady Rosemary interrupted him.
“Don’t, don’t,” she said faintly. “I wish you would stop. You make me think I can feel it. A dreadful pain is shooting up my arm!”
Pepper smiled indulgently. ”

“ You must master theory and orchestration and composition. You must not make yourself one-sided.”
“I should delight in all that, sir,” said the greenhorn argumentatively. “But I am not independently well off. I have no property, no income at all. I have my living to make, sir.”
“All the more reason for laying a broad foundation of solid knowledge,” the ambassador maintained.
“But, sir,” the greenhorn reasoned, “I must begin to make my living soon.”
“Don’t make it too soon,” the ambassador warned him. “Superficiality and shallowness are the curse of our age ”