Sydney C. Grier

“ My lord’s love is my life, and yet thou wilt not believe it because I do not always weep when I am sad. O doctor lady, dost thou not believe that I love my lord?”
“What does the doctor lady know of it?” demanded the Queen. “But thou art my son’s beloved, Nur Jahan, and for that I love thee also. But I would thou wert as we are. Thou art of the idolaters through thy father, and thou dost not grow like us. But thy life is like ours, and, as years pass on, it will be more and more like mine, and if thou dost not weep then, what wilt thou do? Those who do not weep go mad.” ”

“ THE DIE IS CAST. How long Penelope sat in the drawing-room, staring with stony eyes straight before her, after Major Keeling had gone out, she did not know, but she was roused at last by hearing another horseman ride into the courtyard, and walk across the verandah with clinking spurs. She could not face any one just now, whoever it might be, and she ran to the door, intending to take refuge in her own room, but found herself confronted by Ferrers, who broke into a cheerful laugh. ”

“ She looked up eagerly, almost anxiously, as Wylie approached, but the blue eyes met hers with curiosity rather than interest. The seven years since their last meeting had worked no such doleful change in Zoe Teffany as in the man who had once loved her; she had worn well, as women say of one another. She was a woman not to be passed over, alert, keenly interested in life, though an occasional fugitive look of wistfulness betrayed that life had not brought her all she had once confidently expected from it. She shook hands heartily with Wylie. ”

“ Could a more horrible death be devised for the victims of his vengeance than this which grew closer every moment? The cold sweat stood on Cyril’s brow; but he would not alarm the Queen further, far less suggest to her that her son also was absolutely in Giorgei’s power. He felt that he must do something, and throwing back the shutter, he looked narrowly at the shining, water-washed wall below the sill. There was no trace of any crevice or projection that might help in the descent, and at the foot nothing was visible but the foaming torrent. ”

“ Sure if any man had ever cause to render most sincere and hearty thanks to Almighty God for the mercies of a whole lifetime, I have more, for my situation is far above my deserts, and in nothing have I more cause to be thankful than for the dissipation in the course of time of that midsummer madness and raging fever of love that did once consume me for Madam Heliodora, to the temporary, though all too long, obscuration of my true love for her whose faithful spouse and servant I have the happiness to be, and do purpose to remain so long as life shall last,—my dear wife, Dorothy Carlyon. ”

“ Very soon after her arrival, Eveleen was taken up to the Fort gate, to look thence down the long line of the Grand Bazar, and obtain a general view of the city. A wilderness of mud hovels, broken in places by the dome of a mosque or the blunted pyramidal tower of a Hindu temple, with a two-storied house within high walls here and there, but never a tree to relieve the monotony until the eye hailed the grateful greenery of the encircling gardens on the horizon—all was squalid, mean, miserable. ”

“ Do you think I shall be like that soon, Amelia? How melancholy must life appear when one can take no delight in such beauties as are to be observed around one, and all for thinking of those upon which one placed but little value when one possessed ’em! But sure the whole polite world, and not only the unhappy exiles that, like myself, have most probably bid farewell to Britain for ever, would cry shame on me for comparing the poor barbarous works of the pagans here with the handiwork of Europe. ”

“ The maid of honour shrank before the tone, and the gesture with which the Queen waved her aside, but she made another valiant effort.
“Oh, madame, listen to me for one moment! You know how I love you—that I would give everything I have in the world to provide a moment’s happiness for you. Don’t expose yourself again to this man’s cruelty. He returns to you merely that he may gratify his ambition. He cannot love. Trust me, madame; I love you better than my life.”
“I am in your hands, Ernestine,” said Cyril faintly. ”

“ People entangled each other in long paper streamers, banged each other with bladders, knocked off each other’s headgear, poked confetti down each other’s collars, all in high good-humour, and amid shrieks of laughter. Dominos of every possible colour and shade of colour, Pierrots and Pierrettes of every degree of inanity, debased national and historical costumes of every country and every era, eddied round Usk, but he tried in vain to distinguish any figure that he knew. ”

“ He is not good.”
“Not like him!” cried Caerleon. “But he is your brother.”
“I hope I love him,” said Nadia, meditatively. “I should not like anything bad to happen to him. To do him good—to save his soul—I would die, oh, how willingly! But I cannot like him.”
“But wouldn’t you be better able to do him good if you did like him?” asked Caerleon. Nadia considered for a moment.
“I can’t help it. One cannot like a person who one knows is not good. You yourself, if Milord Cyril were to become false, to break his faith, you could not like him any longer.” ”

“ Lady Haigh was very mysterious that evening. She would not let Cecil go to dress for dinner until she herself could come too, and then she accompanied her to her room, where they found the two maids, Um Yusuf and Marta, gazing in speechless admiration at the contents of a great box they had just unpacked. With tender care they had laid on the bed a beautiful evening dress of soft, clinging white stuff, with borders of golden embroidery in a classic pattern, and now they were gently handling a white and gold cloak to match, and a fan of white feathers with a golden mount. ”

“ The new Therma, rebuilt on European methods after its bombardment by the Powers, was a city of enchantment to the little barbarian from Strio, but she durst not let her eyes wander to the tall white houses or the astonishing shops. The swarming crowd of all nationalities that jostled her as she stumbled along, ill and miserable, in the wake of Petros, was simply a collection of moving obstacles, blocking the way to the attainment of her aim, the deliverance of the brother who represented all the romance that had ever touched her life from the spells of the witch-woman. ”

“ The slave-girls exclaimed at the vastness of the spoil, but I saw only the victor. Surely, I thought, he is as an angel of God! While I watched him, the Queen came close to me and whispered in my ear, ‘That is the bridegroom our lord intends for thee, my Nafiza. Doth he please thee?’ O doctor lady, I thought that I should die of joy! On all sides I heard congratulations, but I congratulated myself most of all. Surely never did woman gain her heart’s desire more speedily, nor more speedily see it turn to dust and ashes when gained! ”

“ If you fought a duel about me I should die. There is no need. I will promise never to marry any one—ever. I will do it willingly, gladly. Isn't that enough? What more can I do? Only tell me, and don't do such a wicked, unchristian thing."
"For pity's sake, Hal—you have the gift of the gab," growled Charteris in Gerrard's ear, as she turned agonized eyes upon them.
"Play up to me, then," muttered Gerrard in response, and spoke aloud and cheerfully. "My dear Miss Cinnamond, pray don't distress yourself. My friend Charteris and I have no intention whatever of fighting a duel. ”

“ I bowed my head on the railing with a groan, feeling verily that now I had lost all.
“Hush, sir!” cried Madam Heliodora; “will you ruin yourself and me both? Dry these unmanly tears, and tell me, what have you ever seen in Heliodore de Tourvel that should make you think that she would consent to be used as a bribe to repay a dishonourable action?”
“Alas, madam!” I cried, “you see me humbled to the very dust at your feet. Sure death is the only remedy for misery so great as mine.”
“Rise, sir,” says she angrily, “and let me hear no more of such heathen foolishness. ”

“ I am jealous of politics, Cyril; I am afraid they may separate us from one another. I know it is wrong and foolish; but it is because I love you. You will forgive me? I will try to conquer the feeling, and I will never, never say again what I did just now. Like M. Drakovics, I was mad for the moment.”
“I don’t want to seem hard on you, Ernestine—on my honour I don’t—but you make it very difficult for me to stay here. I can never feel sure that you will not take offence at some necessary move of mine and do something that will shatter my plans and make a fool of me in the face of Europe. ”

“ She followed his muttered directions as if in a dream, for the imaginary world in which she had spent the greater part of her captivity still lay about her, and it was as though her mind received and her body obeyed his orders, while her real self was not there at all.
At last they came to a ledge of rock, on which Wylie allowed a rest from sheer necessity, for he found himself forced to cling to the ladder even when standing on firm ground. ”

“ Oh, my dearest Amelia, if Providence should never see fit to place you in the high situation which my dearest girl’s beauty and merits would so charmingly adorn, let me beg of you not to repine; for sure it’s a terrible thing to find oneself a toast. Your talents, my dear, would questionless enable you to manage better than I, but you know what a sad bungler I am by nature, and the trials of the evening had made of me an actual idiot. ”

“ Philippa was Philippa still, and there was no one like her in all the world, but here was a woman in whose cause a man might joyfully die, and dying, ask no reward but a glance from her eyes. Once Mansfield had wondered at Cyril’s renewed devotion to the Queen, which seemed so foreign to his character, and was kept in such strict subjection by his own will, but since he had seen her he had ceased to wonder. No man who had once succumbed to her charm of manner, however valiantly he might struggle against it, could ever escape from his bondage to those smiles. ”

“ You may be surprised to hear it, Miss Anstruther, but I have a very inconvenient conscience, especially with regard to the things which other people leave undone. They say that in England abuses are good things on the whole, because people get up a separate society for the removal of each one, and this affords occupation to many deserving persons; but in the East they’re good for a man to come to grief over, and nothing more. If you will only let things alone you’re all right, but if you make a fuss it’s like fretting your heart out against a stone wall. ”