Carolyn Wells

“ Don’t be cynical to-night, Tommy—dear.”
His heart missed a beat, as he caught something in her tone that he had never heard there before.
He must have shown his perception of it, for he saw a rosy blush beneath the edge of her little mask, and he hastened to say, “No, it doesn’t matter that they’re mock jewels—for they’re mock people.”
“Yes,” she said, softly, “all but you and me.”
Locke was nonplussed. He didn’t know whether Pearl Jane was trying to make love to him, or whether the gayety of the occasion had gone to her head a little. ”

“ Kate—stay back!”
Henderson took another step, and gave a startled exclamation.
“Keep back, I tell you, Kate. There’s been some awful accident. Call some one—some man. Call Locke and Post first. Wait, don’t raise a general alarm. Get that Chinese servant.”
“What is it, Jack? I will see! Oh, my God!”
Kate Vallon pulled herself together by strong will power.
“Who is it? Take off her mask!”
“I—oh, I can’t! Get Locke—do, Kate!”
Kate ran through the rooms, and though she didn’t see Locke just then, she saw Henry Post and bade him go at once to the smoking room. ”

“ His ways were ways of pleasantness and all his paths were peace, yet though his chums were usually tolerant and broad-minded thinkers, there was little real Bohemianism in evidence, that is, the Bohemianism of what is known as The Village. ”

“ Pearl Jane, dear, without touching that Purple Jellyfish!”
“Some of his poems are fine,” Kate began, but Locke interrupted her:
“Only one—‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’ is a great poem, but nothing else of his is worthy of consideration.”
Kate Vallon began to quote:
And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word.
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword.
“Oh, I hate it!” Pearl Jane shuddered. “If it’s like that, I don’t want to read it!”
“No, you don’t,” Locke agreed ”

“ Get Locke first.”
Henry Post gone, Henderson again looked at the woman’s features. She was beautiful, save for an awful wound where something had crashed down on her temple, and had surely killed her.
“What a strange accident!” Henderson thought. “If she had fallen against a fender now—but there’s no mantelpiece in this room. I wonder if there’s a doctor here. I ought to call one. It can do no harm to leave the poor thing alone for a minute—I won’t go past the door.”
Half uncertainly he rose and went to the door into the studio. ”