Alice Muriel Williamson

“ Nothing can ever be the same again in this world. Oh, I can’t bear the agony of it—of knowing that it’s real, that it isn’t a dream I shall wake up from, crying to be comforted; that I’ve just got to live on, and smile hateful, false smiles, while my heart’s dead ”

“ No one else was invited, except Roger Wentworth, who was practically a member of the family at present; nevertheless, Aline told her maid to pack a number of particularly lovely frocks, too beautiful, in Angéle’s opinion, for an occasion when there was no one but a husband and a crippled cousin to “impress.”
Mrs. Raleigh took charming frocks, too; however, with her it was not a case of impressing her own husband, but the husband of somebody else, in which game she was an expert. She had never “flown” quite as high as a duke before, not because she had lacked ambition, but opportunity. ”

“ I think ordinary marriages, where people have only a mild, comfortable affection for each other, and are ready to be content with one another’s second best feelings, are odious. I am disappointed in Cyril, and through him with life. ”

“ I should never be able to believe that he really cared for me as I once thought he did, and I won’t have anything else from him but the best.”
“You shall have the best; the real, true love, and nothing else, I promise you. ”

“ He had been a reading man at Oxford, had gone in earnestly for politics later, and, being at heart chivalrous and somewhat romantic, had never vulgarized his ideals by becoming what is known as a “woman’s man.” ”

“ It will be better to die.”
Now, at last, the tears were falling like rain, the lovely face puckered piteously like a child’s, but Aline did not care. No one could see her. No one cared any more whether she were pretty or plain. The end of all things had come, for she believed that her husband had fallen in love with another woman.
Yes, she said to herself again, she would die, and then perhaps he would be sorry. All her money would be his, if that were what he had wanted. Thank goodness, that other woman had a husband knocking about the world somewhere, so Cyril couldn’t marry her ”

“ Aline ran down, in her ball dress, and tapped lightly at the door of his sitting room.
An answering “Come in” followed instantly, and the duchess framed herself in the doorway. Roger Wentworth lay on a sofa, reading “Amadis de Gaul.” A light leaped up in his eyes at sight of the tall, white figure, and the expression which annoyed Aline made tense the lines of his face. She did not dream that, instead cf “somber criticism,” it meant the struggle in his heart not to care for her save as Cyril’s wife. By and by he would conquer the yearning in his soul, because the soul was strong ”

“ Aline left the duke and Mrs. Raleigh much together. She even threw them into each other’s society by suggesting that Cyril should teach their guest to punt; and the two spent hours on the river. “She doesn’t mind a bit,” Cyril said to himself of Aline. “Jolly little girl, not to turn rusty the first time I’ve ever given her occasion. I thought at first she meant to be rather hard on me, but I was mistaken, it seems. After all, why should she mind? I’m doing no harm. She knows I put her above all other women ”