Van Tassel Sutphen

“ Betty Graeme could be kind or a good deal less than kind to John Thaneford, and in either case Eunice Trevor would hold it up against her. Any woman will understand how this can be, and I may as well be honest and confess that I got my explanation from Betty herself—only that was a long time afterward.
I can easily comprehend why no one could meet Betty Graeme without wanting to love her, and most of us ended by actually doing so. But that even Betty could have worked the miracle of reaching what passed with Fielding Thaneford for a heart! It does seem incredible. ”

“ I raised my champagne-glass: "To the Utinam Club," I said, with enthusiasm, and rather more loudly than I had intended. The toast was at once re-echoed from every mouth, and a burst of laughter followed.
A late-comer entered and looked about the room somewhat uncertainly, for all the tables had been taken. It was Mr. Colman Hoyt. He saw us and smiled genially. "We have room here," called out Indiman, and he joined us.
"I am fortunate as ever," he said, as he took his seat. "New friends, old wine; and our chef's sauce tartare is incomparable to-night. What more can the heart of man desire?" ”

“ But the wonder of it lay not in this new knowledge of Esmay's heart, but in the revelation of his own. He loved her, he knew it now, and not as in that brief moment of passion at Arcadia, when even honor seemed well lost. For this was the greater love that draws a man to the one woman in the world who has the power to lift him to the heights whereon she herself stands. A supreme joy, that humbled even while it exalted, swept over Constans. "I will go," he said, and took Ulick's hand in both his own. ”

“ No chance here for even the unwitting insertion of that terrible purple boss; indeed the grapes of wrath were no longer in existence, for Chalmers Warriner had taken pains to have every bit of the disjecta membra of the old windows gathered up and buried in some inaccesible pit, its very location to remain forever hidden from human eyes.
To-day the library at "Hildebrand Hundred," exorcised of its dark spirit, is again our favorite living-room. ”

“ A soft hat, trimmed with gold lace and an ostrich-feather, covered his dark curls, while yellow gauntlets and high riding-boots of polished leather completed his outward attire. Not an unpleasing picture as he sat there in the sunshine astride the big blood-bay, but Constans, looking upon him, knew that neither now nor hereafter could there be any verity of peace between them. There is such a thing as hate at first sight even as there is love.
The horseman had retained the feathered end of the arrow-shaft, and he proceeded to examine it with an appearance of polite interest. ”

“ Personality, magnetism—but these are just words, and she was Betty Graeme. A line from an old, half forgotten mediæval romance came back to me as I gazed upon her: "By God's Rood! that is the one maid in the world for me."
A revelation then, but love at first sight is by no means so common a thing as youth is apt to suppose. Only when it does come there can never be any doubt about it. ”

“ Do you know Abingdon Square? It is a small, irregularly shaped triangle of asphalt situated on the lower West Side, and at the intersecting-point of Eighth Avenue and Hudson Street. The houses that front upon it have seen better days. Many of them are now the quarters of cheap political clubs or centres of foreign revolutionary propaganda. It is a neighborhood that has finally lost all semblance to gentility and has become frankly and unreservedly shabby. A square, mind you, and not a park, for there is neither blade of grass nor tree in all of its dreary expanse. ”

“ Yet there were no traces of fire and sword, the houses had suffered no violence, and stood there barred and shuttered as though it were still the middle watch of the night.
"What think you?" said Piers Major to Constans. "Is it the plague?"
"No, or there would be fires burning in the streets and yellow crosses chalked upon the door-lintels. Those who keep so close behind their bolts and bars are living people, hale and strong as ourselves. But, assuredly, some great fear has been put upon them. Perhaps we shall know more as we go on." ”