Anthony Hope

“ Lawn-tennis was the order of the day, and we were all in flannels.
“Oh, here’s Mark,” cried Dora, seeing me. “Now, Mark, you and Mr. Ives had better play against Trix and Lord Newhaven. That’ll make a very good set.”
“No, no, Mrs. Polton,” said Jack Ives. “They wouldn’t have a chance. Look here, I’ll play with Miss Queenborough against Lord Newhaven and Wynne.”
Newhaven—whose appearance, by the way, though hardly distinguished, was not quite so unornamental as the curate had led us to expect—looked slightly displeased, but Jack gave him no time for remonstrance. ”

“ From heiresses in reason a gentleman need neither shrink nor let himself be driven; but when it comes to something like twenty thousand a year—the reported amount of Trix’s dot—he distrusts his own motives almost as much as the lady’s relatives distrust them for him. We all felt this—Stanton, Rippleby, and I; and, although I will not swear that we spoke no tender words and gave no meaning glances, yet we reduced such concessions to natural weakness to a minimum, not only when Lady Queenborough was by, but at all times. ”

“ I had a vision of Lady Queenborough approaching from the house with face aghast. The set went on; and, owing entirely to Newhaven’s absurd chivalry in sending all the balls to Jack Ives instead of following the well-known maxim to “pound away at the lady,” they beat us. Jack wiped his brow, strolled up to the tea-table with Trix, and remarked in exultant tones:
“We make a perfect couple, Miss Queenborough; we ought never to be separated.”
Dora did not ask the curate to dinner that night, but he dropped in about nine o’clock to ask her opinion as to the hymns on Sunday ”

“ I was referring to Trix Queenborough, not to Mrs. Wentworth.
“Good gracious, no!” answered Dora, irritably. “It’s simple jealousy. She won’t let the poor boy alone till he’s in love with her again. It’s a horrible shame!”
“Oh, well, he has great recuperative power,” said I.
“She’d better be careful, though. It’s a very dangerous game. How do you suppose Lord Newhaven likes it?”
Accident gave me that very day a hint how little Lord Newhaven liked it, and a glimpse of the risk Miss Trix was running. Entering the library suddenly, I heard Newhaven’s voice raised above his ordinary tones. ”

“ I really hope that Lord and Lady Newhaven will not be very unhappy, while Mrs. Ives quite worships her husband, and is convinced that she eclipsed the brilliant and wealthy Miss Queenborough. Perhaps she did—perhaps not. There are, as I have said, great qualities in the curate of Poltons, but I have not quite made up my mind precisely what they are. I ought, however, to say that Dora takes a more favorable view of him and a less lenient view of Trix than I. That is perhaps natural. Besides, Dora does not know the precise manner in which the curate was refused. ”

“ My sympathy was not premature, for Miss Trix’s fascinations, which were indubitably great, began to have their effect. The scene about the canoe was re-enacted, but with a different denouement. This time the promise was forgotten, and the widow forsaken. Then Mrs. Wentworth put on her armor. We had, in fact, reached this very absurd situation that these two ladies were contending for the favors of, or the domination over, such an obscure, poverty-stricken, hopelessly ineligible person as the curate of Poltons undoubtedly was. ”

“ By the way, he preached next Sunday on the text, “The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.”
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929. ”