Anthony Hope

“ He shook hands and left me, and I went down and read with mama."
"Nothing else said?"
"He said nothing else. I believe I whispered: 'It'll be rather fun—because you will get off!' But I know I didn't say anything more than that."
There was a pause. I lit another cigarette, snatching a mean advantage by stealing a look at my friend in the light of the match. She was not looking at me, but straight ahead of her: there was a pensive smile on her lips.
"And what happened afterwards?" I asked.
"I suppose you'll be shocked?"
"Being shocked is an emotion hostile to art—I never have it." ”

“ Charlie was just lighting the after-lunch cigarette. Charlie's hands—he is a very good fellow and well-off—are decidedly red and particularly pudgy.
Chapter Two I LIKED Mrs. Pryce very much. She was pretty, dainty, bright, and—well, bachelors are so apt to think that pretty married women have a dull time at home that I will lay no stress on my own private opinion as to her domestic lot. Enough that I was always glad to talk with her, and that it was pleasant to walk with her in the Major's quiet old garden on a fine night when the wind stirred the boughs and the moon shone. ”

“ I expostulated. "You're throwing away all your dramatic effect. What did he say? His words, his words, Mrs. Pryce?"
"He didn't use any—not in the sense you mean. He just told me. He didn't even put me on my honor not to tell anybody else. He said he didn't care a hang about anybody else on board, but that he wanted to spare me any possible shock, and that he'd been concerned in the bond robbery and would probably be arrested at Queenstown, but that he expected to get off this time. ”

“ When our friend of the slim fingers——?"
"Yes."
"Let's sit down," I suggested. We were just passing a garden seat.
She smiled at me half sadly, half mockingly. She saw through me; she knew I wanted to hear more about it. By some sort of sympathy I knew that she wanted to talk about it. It was queer, too, to consider through what window that moon was shining on Slim-Fingered Jim. Did it—and his other surroundings—remind him of the broad Atlantic? "The risks of the profession, gentlemen!"
"Yes, he had beautiful hands," she murmured. ”

“ Pryce. "He recited beautifully at the concert—'The Ballad of Beau Brocade.’"
"Well done him!" I said approvingly. I began rather to like the fellow myself.
"And at the end he made a little speech, thanking the captain, and saying how sorry we should all be when the voyage ended. 'And nobody sorrier than myself,' he said, with one of his looks at me—such a twinkling look—and a tiny wave of those hands."
"He must have been the most popular man on board?"
"Well, the men thought him rather standoffish; he snubbed some of them, I think. Well, you do meet some queer men on a liner, don't you? ”

“ Just bad—bad—bad."
"Ah, well, business is one thing and charity another, as somebody once observed. And now for the end, please—because ends do come, even though we don't believe in them."
"Yes, they do; and this one came," she said. But for an instant or two she did not begin to tell me about it; and in the silence I heard Charlie Pryce assert loudly that he had made a good shot.
Chapter Three "AT lunch on Friday," Mrs. Pryce resumed, "the steward told us that we were expected to reach Queenstown about one o'clock in the morning, and we all began discussing whether we should sit up. ”

“ It must have been the way he did it. There are some people who abolish one's moral scruples, aren't there? He was very quiet generally, but he had a way of just moving those hands of his with a little waving gesture. ”