Agatha Christie

“ The eyes of the young Princess rested on it with a strange sympathy, as though a dawning sense of her own isolation drew her glance irresistibly, They were akin, these two. The world was at her feet—yet she was alone: a Lonely Princess looking at a lonely little god.
All London talked of this picture, and Greta wrote a few hurried words of congratulation from Yorkshire, and Tom Hurley's wife besought Frank Oliver to "come for a weekend and meet a really delightful girl, a great admirer of your work." Frank Oliver laughed once sardonically, and threw the letter into the fire. ”

“ Frank Oliver broke the silence bravely.
"Little Lady, I didn't mean to tell you yet, but I can't help it. love you. I want you. I loved you from the first moment I saw you standing there in your little black suit. Dearest, if two lonely people were together—why—there would be no more loneliness. And I'd work, oh! how I'd work! I'd paint you. I could, I know I could. Oh! my little girl, I can't live without you, I can't indeed—"
His little lady was looking at him very steadily. ”

“ It was your picture, wasn't it?"
Only the gods really know the word "ingratitude." It is to be presumed that the lonely little god knew the black ingratitude of human nature. As a divinity he had unique opportunities of observing it, yet in the hour of trial, he who had had sacrifices innumerable offered to him, made sacrifice in his turn. He sacrificed his only two worshippers in a strange land, and it showed him to be a great little god in his way, since he sacrificed all that he had. ”

“ She was a nursery governess to a family of children who lived at Hampstead, He conceived an instant dislike of these children; of Ted, who was five and really not naughty, only mischievous; of the twins who were rather trying, and of Molly, who wouldn't do anything she was told, but was such a dear you couldn't be cross with her!
"Those children bully you," he said grimly and accusingly to her.
"They do not," she retorted with spirit. "I am extremely stern with them." ”

“ Tom was married to a nice, bright, cheerful girl, very energetic and practical, of whom Frank was secretly afraid, She told him brightly that he must not be a crabbed old bachelor, and was always producing "nice girls." Frank Oliver found that he never had anything to say to these "nice girls" ”