Anthony Hope

“ With the merest indication of a bow, he left Lynborough alone, and passed on into the house.
"Well, now!" said Lord Lynborough, rising and lighting a cigar. "This Marchesa! Well, now!"
Stabb's heavy form came lumbering in from the terrace; he seemed to move more heavily than ever, as though his bulk were even unusually inert. He plumped down into a chair and looked up at Lynborough's graceful figure.
"I meant what I said at dinner, Ambrose. I wasn't joking, though I suppose you thought I was. All this affair may amuse you—it worries me. I can't settle to work. ”

“ Roger Wilbraham, going suddenly a little white, said he thought that persecuting a lady was no fit amusement for a gentleman. Lynborough did not suppose that the Marchesa—with the battle of the day at least drawn, if not decided in her favour—could be regarded as the subject of persecution—and he did recognize that young fellows, under certain spells, spoke hotly and were not to be held to serious account. He was smiling still when, with a forced remark about the heat, the pair went out together to smoke on the terrace. ”

“ Lynborough admired, applauded, and promised himself considerable entertainment at dinner.
How was the Marchesa, in her turn, bearing her domestic isolation, the internal disaffection at Nab Grange? He flattered himself that she would not be finding in it such pleasure as his whimsical temper reaped from the corresponding position of affairs at Scarsmoor.
There he was right. At Nab Grange the atmosphere was not cheerful. Not to want a thing by no means implies an admission that you do not want it; that is elementary diplomacy. Rather do you insist that you want it very much ”