Barry Pain

“ His eyes flashed under the bright gas-jets, and his nostrils quivered. He spoke in a low voice but with the most intense emphasis. "You don't know what you're saying. In our religion there are no consolations. There is only propitiation, and again propitiation, and always propitiation—the sacrifice of more and more as the end draws nearer." He swept his arm round and pointed at the door of his wife's room. "What consolation is there from the Power that there—in there, where you have been—linked love with life only to link life with death again? ”

“ Townes, of course, is as pleased as Punch, but I very soon knocked that out of him. I asked him how he thought he was going to support his children when they were a bit bigger on the wages that he got. I told him he was fit to be a head-gardener now, and asked him if he was content to be second all his life. He said, as things were at present, he didn't like to chuck a sure thing for what was only a chance. He's got no more enterprise than a dead dog. That's the curse of children. They hang round you like a dead weight, and you never get on at all. ”

“ It is a sad truth that it is the people who are naturally the nicest to look at who take the greatest trouble to look nice. The woman who, so far as her face is concerned, makes the best of a bad job, is very rare. Kate was not a beauty, but she was sensible and resigned. She dressed herself very quickly in things that wore well. It was her boast that she could do her hair without a looking-glass, and everybody who saw her hair believed it. But as it happened, when Kate met Elsa, a change came over her. ”

“ When everything was tidy Peters sat down and drank his tea, and thought about his ambitions.
Now, Mr Peters, as will have been gathered, was as ignorant as a child of the manner in which promotion takes place in a solicitor's office, and of the fact that he had no chance whatever. He was conscientious and patient, and could do mechanical work; he was quite regular. Some men can do a thing one day which they cannot do on the next, but Peters was never unexpected. ”

“ Jimmy repeated.
Netta looked away from him, up at the flies circling on the white ceiling. Her eyes grew big and meditative. She continued humming.
"Well," said Jimmy, desperately, "what can they do?"
"Every night when you're in bed and asleep, and when everybody else is in bed and asleep, they can come out of the temple and run about. They run up walls and along the roofs of houses. And they can fly, too. They fly just like—like flies." ”

“ The whole thing had been so strange that this outbreak did not particularly astonish me. "You'd be a happier man, Mr Tarn, and a more sensible man, if you would simply accept Nature as you find it. You can't alter it and you can't understand it. You're beating your head against a wall." ”

“ William took a riverside cottage and a small flat in London. He went from one to the other as the mood took him, and as a rule made the journey on his motor-car. He liked driving the car, but it was rather a fearful pleasure. He was, perhaps, the most cautious driver extant, and the secret amusement of his hireling chauffeur. When William went from his cottage to his flat in town, he made the chauffeur take the wheel when they approached London. William did not like driving through thick traffic at any time, and did not like driving by night at all. ”

“ He knew the value of a slight hint of mystery. "Have a cigarette now, Mrs Bablove?"
"Thanks. I think I will."
"Why wouldn't you smoke before?" he asked as he lit the cigarette for her.
"Too many people. The room's nearly empty now. I'm not so brave as—Nirvana."
"I don't think you quite know what you are. You're full of possibilities."
"I like these cigarettes," said Dora. "Teddy gives me one sometimes, though I don't often smoke, but his are not quite so nice as these." ”

“ To escape the sweet sympathy of her friends and relations she went away all by herself to live in a little cottage in a forest. It is good for a girl who has been seeing too many people to live [Pg 71] all by herself for a while. It is good for a girl who has been long in a crowded town to go away into the forest solitude. Your soul must go to the cleaner, just like your gloves.
Now that there was no one to sympathise with her loss, and no one to attract by her beautiful hair even if she had still had it, she could begin to think of other things. ”

“ A little later, as he sat before the log fire and filled his pipe, he turned to his host with a sudden question: "I say, Vyse, why did you want me to come down here? What's the meaning of it all?"
"My dear fellow," said Vyse, "I wanted you for the pleasure of your society. Now, don't get impatient. I also wanted you because you are the most normal man I know. Your confirmation of my experiences in the tower is most valuable to me. Also, you have good nerves, and, if you will forgive me for saying so, no imagination. I may want help that only a man with good nerves would be able to give." ”

“ If I choose to give an order to an idiot, then it's only fair that I should suffer for it."
"I don't know that I've forgotten much before, Mr Adam."
"No, my boy, you haven't. And you'd better not forget much again if you want to keep your place. Just you let it be a lesson to you. And if you must be the father of six squalling brats, keep 'em out of your mind during work-hours. The truth is, Townes, that you think too much of those children of yours. ”

“ Netta, the make-believer, rose to the occasion with a new myth.
"The magic rings have been insulted. They do not like that. I don't like being insulted myself, and [Pg 239] if it had been my governess I should have answered back. Well, I know what the magic rings will do now."
"What?"—breathlessly, from all.
"They will go away. To-night I shall put them in their temple in their usual place. But to-morrow all of you come in the morning after lessons, and you'll see—they'll be gone! They will go right away by themselves, perhaps to the moon and perhaps to the Star of Dolls." ”

“ The rain had cleared now and I rose to go. "Mr Tarn," I said, "before I leave you I think it my duty as a doctor to tell you something."
"About Mala?" he asked eagerly.
"About yourself." He laughed contemptuously. "If you go on with your present manner of life I will not answer for the consequences. I think you are playing, and have been playing, a very dangerous game; the case of your own friend warns you how dangerous it is. This prolonged solitude is bad for you and bad for your wife. ”

“ In the end, of course, Elsa had to submit, for it is very wicked for girls of a certain age to wear their hair down. But she became extremely ingenious. She had ways of doing that hair so that it would not stop up, but tumbled down unexpectedly and caused great admiration. She would then pretend to be confused and embarrassed. Now, when a girl who is not in the least confused and embarrassed tries to look so, she looks simply silly. Her sisters told her so. Every single girl friend she had, and many who were only acquaintances, had seen that hair in its native glory. ”

“ I can see, of course, that a practised author might make something of a character—a consistent whole—out of Cyrus Verd. I only give notes of what came to my knowledge, and confess that I have not the imagination requisite to connect them, supplement them, and give them that air of probability which is always found in the best fiction, and so seldom in real life. ”

“ Intelligent? Mais que voulez-vous que je vous dise? Can one have everything? His clothes were of the best quality and of the latest fashion. Let us be content.
Duncan Garth grasped some of the extended hand. "This is most kind of you, Monsieur Renard. We have all admired your prowess, and are delighted to have the chance to know you a little better."
The Belgian was slow and self-possessed. "Thank—you," he said.
"We shall have to behave ourselves," laughed Garth, "or you'll be throwing all of us out of the window." ”

“ Still, I do take it as being very kind—"
"You can hold your tongue, Townes. I've got no kindness for such as you—wasting hours of skilled work by your damned wool-gathering forgetfulness."
"The fact of the case is that I'd got that child Hilda a bit on my mind at the time. The missus thought she was sickening for the measles."
"Well, she wasn't. What would it have mattered if she had been? All children have the measles, don't they? Do you think yours have got to be so blessed superior? That's no excuse at all. As for the kindness, it was simply justice. ”

“ Blake stood in the doorway. Yarrow went quickly over to Brackley, and turned the body partially over.
"What is it?" asked Blake, excitedly. "Is the man ill? Has he fainted?"
"Run downstairs," said Yarrow, curtly. "Rouse the porter and get a doctor at once."
The moment Blake had gone, Yarrow took a candle from the card-table, and by the light of it examined once more the body of the dead man. On the throat there was the imprint of a hand—a right hand with the second finger missing. The marks, which were crimson at first, grew gradually fainter. ”

“ Elsa tried to be politely bored.
"So kind of you to say so," she said. "I get frightfully sick of my old wig myself. It's an endless bother."
"And you do it so beautifully," said Kate. "I do wish you'd give me some idea for my hair, so that it wouldn't look awful."
"It isn't awful at all," said Elsa, politely. ”

“ He could imagine already the notice in the catalogue of a second-hand bookseller offering that exquisitely-bound set of Huysman's works, "containing the book-plate of the late Evan Hurst." There were prints and engravings that from long affection and study had given him almost a feeling as if he had had a part in their creation. The Durer, a splendid impression, would fetch fifty pounds at least. Men at the club would remember this evening. They would recall that Evan Hurst was there only a few days before his death, and that even then they had remarked how gloomy and silent he seemed to be. ”

“ The light of the lantern fell now on the white sand of the floor and on a broken spiral staircase on the further side. Far up above one saw a tangle of beams and the stars beyond them. Bill heard Vyse saying that it was left like that after the death in the quarry.
"It's a good solid bit of masonry," said Bill, "but it ain't a cheerful spot exactly. And, by Jove! it smells like a menagerie."
"It does," said Vyse, who was examining the sand on the floor.
Bill also looked down at the prints in the sand. "Some dog's been in here."
"No," said Vyse, thoughtfully. ”

“ A year later, when he returned to England to live the life of a hermit, to teach in song what he had learned in sorrow, some said that he was a lost artist, and some that he was a lost musician, and others that he was a well-defined case of dilettantism. It is, however, difficult to be a hermit in London. London has many tentacles; it puts them out and draws you into the liveliest part of itself. ”

“ As Vyse slid back the bolts of the gate in the garden wall, Bill said suddenly, "By the way, Vyse, how did you know that I shouldn't be at the Leylands' this Christmas? I told you I was going there."
"I don't know. I had a feeling that you were going to be with me. It might have been wrong. Anyhow, I'm very glad you're here. You are just exactly the man I want. We've only a few steps to go now. This path is ours. That cart-track leads away to the quarry where the scientific gentleman took the short cut to further knowledge. And here is the door of the tower." ”

“ As a child her nurses had said that she was too good to live. As a girl of eighteen she seemed too beautiful to live. It was a beauty so spiritual, so unearthly, that to see it was to feel that it was claimed elsewhere. Netta's father had died with the complaint on his lips that physical pain had so far destroyed his sense of humour that he got no more pleasure out of leading articles. Jimmy had gone into the army, spent his own share of his father's property and most of Netta's, and finally redeemed by a gallant death a life that had been remarkably extravagant and bad.
Netta's hair was grey ”

“ The head-waiter, at a side-table, took the neck of a bottle of sparkling burgundy between his dusky [Pg 108] hands and caused it to rotate vigorously in the ice-pail. This does not really make that curious wine any the worse. Another waiter handed up for Mr Carver's approval the chef's attempt to make a lobster look like a sunset on the Matterhorn.
"Looks almost too good to eat," said Adela Holmes, drowsily.
Mr Carver laughed joyously. "Think so, Nirvana? Well, we'll try it."
The wonder had not yet quite gone out of the soft brown eyes of Dora Bablove. This was luxury indeed. ”

“ Sandene resembles Felonsdene in that both are hollows in the downs, and resembles it in no other respect. Sandene is approached by a definite and well-made road. Its farm-house and little group of cottages have a cheerful and human look. The inhabitants are busy folk, but they find time to whistle and to laugh. Gladys Perrot, I found, was suffering from a diet of which the nature and extent had been dictated by enthusiasm rather than by judgment. ”

“ What would you say if I talked like that?"
"To my mind," said Perrot, stolidly, "a sheep-dog is a dog that's clever and reliable at handling sheep, and I don't care what the breed is—I don't care if he's a poodle. Come to that, Tarn's dog looks like a cross between a retriever and a—a elephant. All the same, he'd be worth five sovereigns to me, and I'd back my judgment too. Tell you why. I expected there was somebody with the dog and I wanted to do the right thing—a drink for a master or sixpence for his man—and I gave a hulloa. ”

“ A week after my return to town I got a note from Cyrus Verd, asking me to dine with him and "assist at the funeral of H. Jackson." I accepted. We were alone, and the dinner was ridiculously magnificent. I congratulated him on his engagement, which that morning had been made public. He seemed in the best of spirits. After dinner he said:
"I am going to explain the death of H. Jackson. Money has power, and the novelty of possession is attractive. But any other kind of power is better worth while, and the novelty ceases." ”