Harold MacGrath

“ Jane was one of those suffocating adventurers whom circumstance had fenced in. In fancy she beat her hands against the bars of this cage that had no door, but through which she could see the caravans of dreams. Sea room and sky room were the want of her, and no matter which way she turned—bars. Her soul craved colour, distances, mountain peaks; and about all she had ever seen were the white walls of hospital wards. It is not adventure to tend the sick, to bind up wounds, to cheer the convalescing; it is a dull if angelic business. ”

“ At first Kathlyn had not the least idea where she was, but the light beyond the lattice, the flitting shadows, and the tinkle of a stringed instrument assured her that she was awake, terribly awake.
She sat perfectly still, slowly gathering her strength, mental and physical. She was not her father's daughter for nothing. She was to fight in some strange warfare, instinctively she felt this; but from what direction, in what shape, only God knew. Yet she must prepare for it; that was the vital thing; she must marshal her forces, feminine and only defensive, and watch. ”

“ Margot Bourdaloue... The marquis closed his eyes; the revelry dissolved into silence. How distinctly he could see that face, sculptured with all the delicacy of a Florentine cameo; that yellow hair of hers, full of captive sunshine; those eyes, giving forth the velvet-bloom of heartsease; those slender brown hands which defied the lowliness of her birth, and those ankles the beauty of which not even the clumsy sabots could conceal! He knew a duchess whose line of blood was older than the Capets' or the Bourbons'. Was not nature the great Satirist? ”

“ I shall leave to-morrow, Gretchen. I shall feel as Adam did when he went forth from Eden. Whatever your place in this world is it is far above mine. I am, in truth, a penniless adventurer. The gulf between us cannot be bridged."
"No," said Gretchen, the smile leaving her lips, "the gulf cannot be bridged. You are a penniless adventurer, and I am a fugitive from—the law, the King, or what you will. You are a man; man forgets. ”

“ It wasn't as if Cutty was asking her to be his wife; he wasn't. Just wanted to dodge convention, and give her freedom and happiness. He was only giving her a mite out of his income. Because he had loved her mother; because, but for an accident of chance, she, Kitty, might have been his daughter. Why, then, this persistent and unaccountable revulsion? Why should she hesitate? The ancient female fear of the trap? That could not be it. For a more honourable, a more lovable man did not walk the earth. Brave, strong, handsome, whimsical—why, Cutty was a catch! ”

“ One hill more, and George, to his infinite delight, saw a cluster of date-palms ahead, a mile or so; and he knew that this was to be the haven for the ship of the desert. The caravan came to it under the dim light of the few stars that had not yet attained their refulgence. Under the palms were a few deserted mud-houses, huddled dejectedly together, like outcasts seeking the nearness rather than the companionship of their co-unfortunates. Men had dwelt here once upon a time, but the plague had doubtless counted them out, one by one. ”

“ She touched Artemis with a spur, and the filly broke into a canter toward the lake road. The girl's nostrils dilated. Every flower, the thousand resinous saps of the forest, the earth itself, yielded up a cool sweet perfume that was to the mind what a glass of wine is to the blood, exhilaration.
Mottled with pink, and gray, and blue, and gold, the ever-changing hues of the morning, the surface of the lake was as smooth as her mirror and, like it, always reflecting beauty. Fish leaped forth and fell with a sounding splash, and the circles would widen and gradually vanish. ”

“ A little before sunrise the yacht Laura swam into the gulf. The mountains, their bulks in shadowy gray, their undulating crests threaded with yellow fire, cast their images upon the smooth tideless silver-dulled waters. Forward a blur of white and red marked the town.
"Isn't it glorious?" said Laura, rubbing the dew from the teak rail. "And oh! what a time we people waste in not getting up in the mornings with the sun."
"I don't know," replied Fitzgerald. "Scenery and sleep; of the two I prefer the latter. I have always been routed out at dawn and never allowed to turn in till midnight. ”

“ Are you, indeed, a woman? Have you no respect for death and sorrow? Was the bauble so precious to your sight that you could not wait till the last rites were paid to the dead? Is your heart of stone, your mind devoid of pity and of conscience? Are you lacking in magnanimity, which is the disposition of great souls? Ah, Madame, you will never be great, for you have stooped to treachery and deceit. You, a princess! ”

“ Lane, Selma knew that she would have found this spot intolerable, beautiful as it was. The woman could live here, then? She could go on with life as though nothing extraordinary had happened? What kind of a mind was sheltered here? What kind of a heart?
She nodded to the chauffeur to proceed; and the car glided smoothly forward onto the crisp pebbles of the oak-lined driveway, which was a series of half-circles, with sudden and unexpected vistas, inexpressibly lovely. Always some angle of the ruby-garnished gray stone of the manse was to be seen. ”

“ It was one of those nights, those mild November nights, to which the novelists of the old regime used to devote a whole page; the silvery pallor on the landscape, the moon-mists, the round, white, inevitable moon, the stirring breezes, the murmur of the few remaining leaves, and all that. But these busy days we have not the time to read nor the inclination to describe.
Suddenly upon the stillness of the night the splendor of a human voice broke forth; the prima-donna was trying her voice. A violin wailed a note. A hand ran up and down the keys of the piano. ”

“ The trees on the Warrington lawn sighed incessantly; and drip, drip, drip, went the rain on the leaves. Not a light shone anywhere in the house; total darkness brooded over it. In one of the rooms a dog lay with his nose against the threshold of the door. From time to time he whined mournfully. In another room an Angora cat stalked restlessly back and forth, sometimes leaping upon a chair, sometimes trotting round and round, and again, wild-eyed and furtive, it stood motionless, as if listening. Death had entered the house; and death, to the beast, is not understandable. ”

“ Gold-leaf and opals, thought Elsa. What a wonderful world! What a versatile mistress was nature! Never two days alike, never two human beings; animate and inanimate, all things were singular. She paused at the rail and glanced down the rusty black side of the ship and watched the thread of frothing water that clutched futilely at the red water-line. Never two living things alike, in all the millions and millions swarming the globe. What a marvel! Even though this man Warrington and Arthur looked alike, they were not so. ”

“ Some day she would confound him by returning it.
A little later her fingers were moving softly over the piano keys; melodies in minor, sad and haunting and elusive, melodies that had never been put on paper and would always be her own: in them she might leap from comedy to tragedy, from laughter to tears, and only she would know. The midnight adventure was forgotten, and the hero of it, too. With her eyes closed and her lithe body swaying gently, she let the old weary pain in her heart take hold again. ”