Anthony Hope

“ I put the atlas on the sofa by me, got up, and went to her.
"I suppose I may go now, too?" I said.
"How clever you're growing, Mr. Wynne! But just let him get out of the house. We mustn't give it away."
A moment or two we stood in silence. Then she said: "You understand things. You shall have a note too—and a thousand hopes. And—good by!"
Not a suspicion of the meaning of this afternoon's scene crossed my mind, which facts proved me, I daresay, to be very stupid. But Val was hardly likely to see more clearly, and I can't altogether justify the play she made with the atlas and Assiniboia. ”

“ She saw this; I can quite understand that it annoyed her very much. For the rest, Lady Lexington's demeanor set the cue: "It must end all right; meanwhile we must bear it."
She and Mr. Sharpies and Miss Boots were all going to an afternoon drawing-room meeting, but I was asked to stay and have tea. "You'll give him a cup of tea, won't you, Katharine?" And did my ears deceive me, or did Lady Lexington breathe into my ear, as she shook hands, the words, "If you could say a word—tactfully!" I believe she did; but Jane says I dreamed it, or made it up, more likely. ”

“ Jane remarked, with much gratification. "I was at the Lexingtons's yesterday. She is queer."
I saw that Jane wanted me to ask questions, but I always prefer having gossip volunteered to me; it seems more dignified, and one very seldom loses anything in the end. So I just nodded, and relighted my pipe. Jane smiled scornfully.
"You'll go there yourself to-day," she said. "I know you."
"I was going, anyhow—to pay my dinner call." ”

“ I did not want to take sides in the matter, and had no intention of saying anything that Jane could quote either to Lady Lexington or to Miss Constantine herself.
"What is expected of her?" I asked carelessly, taking my pipe out of my mouth.
"Nobody exactly presses her—well, there's nobody who has the right—but of course she feels it herself," Jane explained. She knitted her brows and added, "It must be overwhelming." ”

“ True, I was placed, as a friend of the family, between Miss Boots, the Lexingtons's ex-governess, and Mr. Sharples, Lady Lexington's latest curate (she always has one in tow; some of the earlier ones are now in a fair way to achieve gaiters) , so that there was nothing very likely to distract my attention from the center of interest. But I should have watched them, anyhow. Who could be better to watch? Katharine, with her positive, incisive beauty (there was nothing of the elusive about her; some may prefer a touch of it) ”

“ But here, perhaps, I could not get thoroughly into the skin of the devotee: the god is not expected to be overwhelmed by his altars and his sacrifices—his divinityship is merely satisfied.
"Mr. Hare is behaving splendidly," Jane reported to me. She had a constant—apparently a daily—report of him from Lady Lexington, his unremitting champion. Indeed, the women were all on his side, and it was surprising how many of them seemed to know his position; I cannot help thinking that Val, in his turn, had succumbed to the temptations of sympathy. ”

“ Primitive man ought to have thought that—he did! You see? The result is, that the facts have to adapt themselves to these conclusions of his. Now, that habit of mind, Wynne, makes a man who has to do with public affairs a dangerous and pernicious fool. ”

“ In the course of the next few days the Powers That Be in the land took a hand—doubtless an entirely unconscious one—in the game. A peer died; his son, going up to the House of Lords, vacated the post of Under-Secretary for the Colonies. Amid a chorus of applause and of flattering prophecies Valentine Hare was appointed in his place. I met, at one of my clubs, a young friend who had recently entered the Colonial Office, and he told me that the new member of the administration's secretary would in all probability be Oliver Kirby. ”

“ That it's failure, and that all the other girls will say so—failure in the one great opportunity of her life, in the one great thing that's expected of her; that it's final; that she must live all her life a failure among those who looked to her for a great success. ”

“ Perhaps I should say of non-essentials—of things which a man might not have, and yet be intrinsically as good a man—but, having which, he was, for all outside and foreign purposes, a man far more efficient. Val was, as I shall indicate in a moment, a bit of philosopher himself, so he could not with reason object to being thus philosophically considered. ”

“ Kirby took my arm. "The man is constitutionally incapable of thinking in the right order. It's always the same with him, I don't care whether it's an article about North Africa or that book of his about primitive man. He always—not occasionally, but always—starts with his conclusion and works backward to the premises. North Africa ought to be that shape—it is! ”

“ I believe I had only a hazy idea of what might be done by a more sympathetic demeanor, a more ample acknowledgment of Miss Constantine's sacrifices—a notion that she might do the big thing if he made her think it the enormous thing, aren't girls even that sometimes? The sower of the seed is entitled to some credit for the crop ”

“ That's all very well, but suppose he gets to the top of the tree, as the fellow will, and issues a Declaration of Independence? At least he'll be Premier, and come over to a conference some day. Val will be secretary for the Colonies, probably (unless he has come that cropper) . There's a situation for you! Well, I shall just leave town. I daresay I sha'n't be missed.
Lady Lexington carried it off well. She said that, from a strain of romance she had observed in the girl, the marriage was just what was to be expected of Katharine Constantine. ”