E. F. Benson

“ Madame Laridoff was still only twenty-four, a type of that patrician beauty which is a speciality of Russia, clever to a piercing point, and of so human a strength of character that all she had gone through had left her unembittered. No standard external to herself affected her own fastidiousness of morals; and though by her religion and her laws she was free to marry again, she had vowed a self-imposed celibacy so long as her husband lived. In this resolve she stood immutable. For three years now Sir Herbert had been openly at her feet; for him the world held no other woman ”

“ No man shall be maimed through me—least of all, you. There are splendid things in front of you—life, and its prizes. Win them, hold them, be master of them. But, Herbert," and the firm voice broke, "if you come back to me when your work as a man in the world no longer parts us, if you come to me when you are eighty and dying, you will find me waiting." ”

“ Democratic principles ruled the traffic, and at every street corner of Piccadilly, policemen, impartiality incarnate, opened and shut, irrespective of the quality of the stream, the spouting weirs, giving to each its turn, now to a string of nodding wagons, now to a medley of omnibuses and fretting hansoms in a seemingly inextricable knot of overlapping wheels, now to a section of winking black lacquer and liveried drivers. ”

“ Lady Tempest shook her head.
"Poor Claude," she said. "Your power of drawing perfectly obvious deductions is colossal. You think that Marie will behave like an ordinary, stupid woman. It has been reserved for you to attribute stupidity to her. Come, it is stifling here. Let us go on!"
Madame Laridoff meantime had passed through the lobby at the top of the stairs, exchanging a hundred greetings as she went. Sir Herbert was still with her, and after a populous ten minutes they penetrated the thickest of the crush and came out beyond, where it was possible to hold an isolated conversation. ”

“ Sir Herbert, in fact, was likely to remain there. He had conceived the ill-starred idea of walking between carriages to gain the north side of Piccadilly, but the crush was too thick, and, despairing of getting across till the forward movement began, he had come to a halt just opposite Madame Laridoff's victoria.
"Sir Herbert," she said again, and as he turned, "get in and talk to us till we get to the corner. You will never get across on your feet. There is a seat there; put it up or pull it down. Of course you know Lady Tempest." ”

“ Marie Laridoff transformed her abstracted smile into a conscious one.
"You English are for ever proving things by proverbs," she said. "There is no such proof possible. You can only prove the truth of proverbs by observing things. Besides, dear, how can we turn? There are five omnibuses between us and the pavement on one side, and sixty-four hansom cabs on the other." ”

“ It is not possible to refuse. You might as well retire at once."
"Even so. But a man's career is not all his life." He paused a moment, "Oh, if you were free," he said, "if you would only consider yourself free."
"There is no profit in going over that again," she said.
"You are still of the same mind?"
"Absolutely. You have also got a chance which I suppose has never come to a man of your age."
"But Petersburg," said he.
"Is it so easy for me to urge you, Herbert?" she asked with a sudden earnestness. "Do you think I want to banish you, to send you to the place I can never come to? ”

“ Down the roadway, slowly and with many checks, flowed the flood of vehicles, and passage along the pavements was hardly less deliberate, for it was the hour when locomotion is at high-tide, and from house-wall to house-wall, from shop-front to park-paling, the river-beds of men were full. ”

“ The English upper class always have an idol—he may be an explorer, a music-hall star, a singer, and there is no reason why he should not be a crossing-sweeper or an engine-driver. This year Madame Laridoff occupied that envied but precarious position, and, it must be confessed, enjoyed it very much. For four years England had found her delightful, this year it found her essential. She had, as Claude Davis (who goes to more parties in a week than are given in a fortnight) remarked, the quality of centrality ”

“ Like all people to whom mankind is the dominant interest, she was very self-conscious in a large, central manner, and her reflections were founded on the unformulated basis of how things struck her, not on how things in themselves really were. ”

“ Her appearance at a big crush of this kind was not usual, and for that reason the more interesting. Sir Herbert, it was known, had been offered the Embassy at Petersburg, and the world was anxious to find out how Madame Laridoff took it. Though she would not marry him while her husband lived, all the world knew how great was their intimacy, and it was even thought that she might use her influence with him to make him decline a post which, owing to her banishment from Russia, so completely separated them. ”

“ After a year of married life he had tired of her in the invariable manner in which a bad man tires of a good woman, and would almost have murdered her, had there not been other ways of getting rid of her. ”

“ He stood, hat in hand, in foreign fashion, as be took the place indicated.
"I am certainly very lucky," he said, "for I was just wondering under the wheels of which omnibus my destiny would be accomplished. It is far pleasanter to accomplish it in your victoria."
A man talking to two women never addresses both quite impartially; his words are always spoken to one or the other. These were clearly spoken to Madame Laridoff. ”