Marjorie Benton Cooke

“ She was crouched before a fire, cross-legged, her face cupped on her hands. In her pink robe and cap she looked more like a child than ever. She half turned her head, as if feeling his presence, so he saw how pale she was, how black the circles round her eyes.
“My little love!” he cried to her. “My little love!”
She sprang to her feet, facing him; her hands went swiftly to her heart, as if a spasm shook her. As Jarvis came toward her, a great light in his face, she put her hands out to fend him off. ”

“ Jane found great peace and help from those straight, slim trees. They were so unfettered, so upstanding, so sure. She repeated over and over:
"Hast thou ne'er known the longings—
Ambitions vain desires—
The hope, the fear, the yearning
Which mortal man inspires?"
She gathered into her being all the calm of Nature, strength from her out-of-door life, wisdom out of silence and Baby's talk, but yet she could not bring herself to send for Jerry. She knew that both of these men were suffering, as they waited for her answer; she wanted not to hurt them, and still—she hesitated. ”

“ A dark flush mounted Drake's face, and burnt itself out in his hair. It might have been anger or embarrassment or shame.
"Yes," he answered finally.
"I thought so."
"No one ever dared to ask me that before," he added.
"Perhaps no one ever guessed," she said.
"Your mother knows," Drake confessed.
"Oh, mother—she knows everything. Isn't she wonderful?"
"She's the most wonderful woman I know."
"I'm so glad you think so, too. You see I've never had any one to talk to before about mother—any one who would understand, I mean." ”

“ Oh, Jarvis, do let's hurry and make much red gold, so I can look like these finished things that trip up Fifth Avenue."
"You want to be like them—like those dolls?" he scorned, with a magnificent gesture.
"Yes. I'd like to be so putrid with wealth that I could have rows of wardrobe trunks, with full sets of clothes for every me."
"How many of you are there?"
"Oh, lots. I've never counted myself. Some days I'd dress up like a Broadway siren, some days I'd be a Fifth Avenue lady, or a suburbanite, or a reformer, or a ballet dancer, or a visitor from Boston." ”

“ Glad that she had to face a decision about Jerry.
There was one unescapable knot, no matter how she untangled the skein. She could not argue away the baby. He constituted Jerry's biggest hold upon her. For if Jerry had not given her love, he had given her something in its place which had aroused the one great passion in her nature. She loved Jerry Jr. with every throb of her heart.
Wasn't this mother love enough? It had filled her life so far. It was, with Jane, fierce and absorbing. Man and woman love had so many elements, so many complexities, such possibilities of tragedy and sorrow. ”

“ Miss Watts was prepared to have Isabelle throw herself into the activities of the brief voyage, in order that she might forget her troubles. She did just the opposite. She lay in her chair, reading or contemplating the sea; she marched the deck in absent-minded solitude. Miss Watts was the only person she spoke to, or permitted to speak to her.
But her odd face, her unusual clothes, and her great hauteur marked her at once in the eyes of the idlers who sat on deck and gossiped. She was soon identified as the heroine of the Cartel opening. Speculation and much interest followed her. ”

“ I know my wife to be absorbed in another man; you say your husband turns to another woman. We represent to them stumbling-blocks between them and their happiness. Surely it is only right that we should all be freed to find our true mates.
"I find it daily more of a burden to carry this secret in my heart, when knowledge of it would lighten my wife's unhappiness. Shall we not confess the situation, and discuss plans for separation? I owe this girl who bears my name more than I can ever pay. I would not do anything to hurt her pride. Tell me what you think about it, dear one?
"YOUR JARVIS." ”

“ Martin went to the window again, and came back. "I want the happiness of you two people more than anything on earth. If it is to come to you through each other, then I want to see you married."
"If you'd like it, mother, I'll marry him."
"You must be sure of yourself, Priscilla. It would be very terrible if a child of mine should fail him," she added, half to herself.
"Oh, I want so to please you both, mother—you and him. You are the two people I admire the most. But I don't see how I could bear it to go away from you. We'll all have to live together, won't we?" ”

“ Isabelle, not intending to lie, misled all of ye about her father,” said Mr. Benjamin, gravely.
“Yes, and we adored him so! When that little wizened man came in, we almost died!” blurted out Peggy.
The light broke upon the Benjamins, but they tried not to smile at each other.
“Isabelle’s imagination can prove a gift or a curse,” Mr. Benjamin continued. “Its possession lays a great obligation upon her. If it is used to mislead, or to obscure the truth, it is a dangerous power. Whatever the extenuating circumstances, it comes to this, that Isabelle lied to her friends. ”

“ Barbara answered with a shout of excitement and pleasure. They put their ponies to the run, sparing them neither for climb nor descent. The mountains seemed to rock about them; the noise of wind and thunder made speech impossible, little whirlwinds of dust and loose earth and stones enveloped them. Down below the valley was a black abyss.
They sighted the shack and made a last frantic scramble for it. As Bill kicked in the door of the cabin the last full fury broke. Trent lifted Barbara off her pony and ran into the house with her. ”

“ Am I accurate, Jane?"
"Quite," she said calmly.
"She is forced to take a mere job to buy food. Enter a brilliant but impoverished artist, with the job in his right hand. Heroine toils by day that she may create by night. Midnight oil, cold tenement room, you know. Abraham Lincoln stuff."
"Jane, while you were working for all of us, did you write, too?"
Jane nodded.
"Don't interrupt, Bobs. Enter hero—a great critic—a literary light. Reads heroine's work—hails her genius of the age—rushes her to publishers, who press gold upon her and accept her immortal opus!" ”

“ At the end of the first act he stopped and looked at the faces of his audience. The Professor was awake and deeply puzzled. This strange young man was holding up to his view a perfectly strange anomaly which he called a woman. The Professor
had never dreamed of such a hybrid. He couldn’t grasp it. He gasped at Jarvis’s audacity.
Bambi sat curled up in the end of a wicker couch, her feet drawn under her, like a Chinese idol, every nerve attuned to attention. He noticed how, without words, she seemed to emanate responsiveness and understanding. ”

“ A mountain stream bounded and roared along beside the place. A hut had been set up by a logging gang, and a thick bed of hardwood chips and bark powder marked the spot where the forest giants had met their inglorious end. Bill attended to the ponies while Bob and Paul collected firewood.
Supper was a silent function—the silence of people who understand each other and need not talk. Bob smiled at Paul when their eyes met, and for the rest, they looked off over a sample of God's handiwork that made man-talk as futile as monkey chatter. ”

“ Of all the arts, literature is the most exacting mistress. With some idea of the technique of painting, or music, coupled with a surface brilliance, you may paint or sing or play. With even less equipment, you may act; but to write, you must have lived, you must have suffered and known joy; you must be able to analyze people, to understand their motives, to love them. To write, you must have ideas and emotions. It is only when the sources of your own being run deep that you can bring up waters of refreshment for others. ”

“ He limped off, and Drake sat down, lifted Priscilla's head into his lap, and sat looking down at her. He didn't touch her, nor speak to her, nor did he mind the steady drip, drip, of blood from his cut head; he just sat and looked at the white face in his lap, and knew what it was to watch joy go; knew what Orpheus felt as Eurydice faded; knew what every man knows who faces the loss of his heart's desire. All the years of his life marched before him—empty-handed because they had not known Priscilla; the years to come approached with bowed heads, for they were not to know Priscilla ”

“ I have come to know all my happiness lies in the balance of that one night, toward which we walk, you and I, every minute of every day.
“Your Lady.”
His answer came, special delivery:
“It shall be as you wish, dear heart. But if anything should happen to delay the opening of the play, I think I should ask you to remit the sentence of banishment. I live only to look into your eyes!
“How can you say that you may disappoint me? If you were old, humpbacked, ugly—what difference? You are mine! We must find freedom for ourselves and a new life. I adore you. ”

“ When Jerry went out of the room, Bobs said to Jane:
"Is Jerry trailing that Morton woman again?"
"He is painting her, as Melisande."
"Do you have to have her here all the time?"
"I don't see much of her. Poor Jerry has her."
"Poor Jerry likes her. Just when you begin to think that women are getting somewhere—being something fine and busy and loyal—then you run into an Althea, and smash goes the dream!"
"Dear, we can't change our natures in one generation, nor two, nor three. When we come back a few centuries from now, think what splendid creatures women will be!" ”

“ Why, all my love for you is just a sword to stab you with, and my love for him is—"
Mrs. Martin put her hand on Priscilla's arm and drew her down beside her. "Now, listen. It seems best that there should be truth between us at last. Years ago, when Tony first began to monopolize my life, I knew that I loved him, and after a year of bitter suffering I realized that he did not love me. After awhile I grew to believe that even a love that is unreturned was better than no love at all. ”

“ She must fight to catch the big manager's attention, and win her way with him. She drew her furs about her, closed her eyes, and tried to shut out the sight of that sordid, wretched room, where handsome big Jarvis was paying the toll to success—toll of blood and brain and nerves, paid by every man or woman who mounts to the top! She saw him climbing wearily those dirty stairs, coming into the cell. Over and over she saw it, like a moving-picture film repeated indefinitely.
At quarter before three she ordered the driver to the Empire Theatre. ”

“ We have the bloodiest war in all times; we are primitive savages in our greed for lust and power, just as we are supermen in devising ways of exquisite, torturing death for our enemies. We are the age of the senses, my friend; we brook no denial of the flesh and its appetites."
"I understand what you mean; I know it to be true; but how can I have a part in life, when perforce, I am just an onlooker?" she asked earnestly.
"We will find a way. We must open the door of the nunnery, and lead Sister Jane into the world of deeds, of fight and lose, heartache and some rare joys. ”

“ She never faced the possibility of failure. Jarvis’s name would be made as a playwright. At the thought that she was to bring him his opportunity at last, she flushed and smiled, though her eyes misted. Then she began to plan how she would tell it to Jarvis, the story of her adventuring into the new field, her swift success, and now this last laurel leaf. Suddenly a new idea lifted its head. Suppose Jarvis refused to come into his own, under her mantle, as it were? He would be proud and glad for her, of course, but maybe he would resent taking his first chance from her hands. ”

“ You said once about Priscilla—'the obligations of being greatly loved'—they so disturb life."
"What do you know about it?" she flung out at him. "You've never loved in all your bloodless life."
"Louise!"
"I mean just that. You've no right to an opinion. You've gone along your way, watching, dissecting emotions, and putting the results in books. Well, what of it? What does that amount to—to you, Anthony Drake, the man? You've never leaped to heights undreamed of, and been flung to depths unthinkable, at the merest look of some one you love." ”