E. M. Delafield

“ Sir Julian, who was Mark's friend, involuntarily paid tribute to the truth of her description. Mark had been afraid.
No wonder that Miss Marchrose had capitulated, after all. The citadel for which she had been prepared to stand siege had been only the flimsiest of castles in the air. The cause for which she had held that no casualties could be too heavy had no existence outside her own imagination.
She spoke again.
"So, though I know I've been crying, in a little while I shall be glad that he's gone. Nothing can ever be worse than the last few days. They're over now." ”

“ The Divine Spark is always lurking somewhere—although I admit that sometimes, in the less advanced, it is difficult really to hold fast to that belief."
"Oh, but you always do! No one is like you," said Miss Easter, in all good faith. "I don't believe I've ever heard you say an unkind word of anybody."
Lady Rossiter smiled.
"The great thing," she observed gently, "is never to say anything, unless one can say something kind. And it is very strange, Iris dear, how one can nearly always find something that is nice and yet true, to say of everyone." ”

“ Ruthie was silent, and Lady Rossiter, with a fleeting thought of what an admirable mother she would have made, drew the child gently to her.
"Don't you know that we all contribute, by everything we do and say, to the good and bad in the world? When you are angry, you send out black, ugly thoughts that help to destroy all the good and beautiful harmony that God has put into this lovely world."
Ruthie cast an enquiring glance out of the window at the bleak, grey sky, perfectly bare borders and rather uncompromising Scotch firs which were alone visible at the moment of this lovely world. ”

“ Clarence."
"I wonder if Miss Marchrose knows that he has married," said Edna, rather viciously.
"I wish you would not take it for granted that this is the same woman," said Julian irritably.
Edna laid two fingers upon his sleeve in a manner designed to emphasise her words.
"I shall take nothing for granted. But you see, Julian, I can't take life quite as you do—quite as callously, as cynically. There is a big responsibility for those of us who see a little—ah, such a very little way it is—further into the heart of things. We can only hope, and give, and spend ourselves—and judge no man." ”

“ Mark Easter was pulling at his moustache, leaning well back in his chair, and Miss Marchrose was gazing at Lady Rossiter. Her dark brows were drawn together in a slight frown, that might have indicated puzzledom or disapproval alike.
"It seems to me," said Edna, in the time-honoured opening phrase of the amateur, "it seems to me, that we perhaps none of us quite realise what it would mean to ask any of the staff to give up that precious Saturday. I always feel that it must mean so much to them. ”

“ We, who can wander out into God's beautiful sunshine at will, can hardly grasp what it must be like to be imprisoned between four walls all the week, without free time, without access to the fresh air, the movement of the world outside. Oh," cried Edna, in a very impassioned manner indeed, "I think if one only puts oneself into the place of those girl and women prisoners, toiling for their bread and butter all the week, it will become impossible to take away the poor little Saturday half-holiday which is all they have! ”

“ What should I feel if she did that sort of thing to Mark one day? Of course, it shows that she's not at all the sort of person to sacrifice herself for anybody."
"I am quite sure," said Sir Julian gently, "that you have no idea what a terrible thing it would be for any man to fall seriously in love with a woman to whom he could never offer marriage. Mark is a married man."
"He hasn't seen that awful creature for years and years," said Iris resentfully. ”

“ I can't let Mark break his heart a second time. Not that she's attractive, or even pretty," said Edna, distinctly divided between her determination to exploit Mark Easter's peril and her reluctance to allow to Miss Marchrose any of the usual advantages attributed to a charmer of men....
"I know no one less likely than Mark Easter to make a fool of himself in that particular way," said Julian emphatically.
"It's not Mark that I'm afraid of," inconsistently said Lady Rossiter. "A friendship with a good, true woman is often a man's best safeguard." ”

“ Within the last ten years, all the forbearance which she was capable of displaying being apparently without any effect upon Sir Julian, Lady Rossiter had rather disgustedly transferred her allegiance from the Almighty, in propria persona, to God as He is found in Nature.
Nature, primarily, meant out-of-doors generally, in warm weather, and the sound of the sea two miles off, audible from beside the boudoir fire, in the colder seasons.
Lately, however, Nature had also embraced such of humanity as had its place rather lower than that of the Rossiters in the social scale. ”

“ These men and women who work for a living are human beings like ourselves!"
An electric silence followed the announcement.
Edna's head was moved slightly backwards, in the manner of one who has flung down the gauntlet fearlessly. Her eyes travelled slowly round the table.
Suddenly she uttered an impulsive "Ah!"
Julian, taken unawares, glanced up quickly. His wife's eager, ardent gaze had fallen upon Miss Marchrose, motionless in her place.
"My dear!" she exclaimed half under her breath, but entirely audibly, "I forgot you—I forgot you were here. Have I hurt you?" ”

“ Mark put Iris into the motor—a radiantly pretty bride—and Douglas got in beside her, after muttering something about the old man being in extraordinarily good form to-day and inclined to get above his boots.
"We of the younger generation——" began Mr. Douglas Garrett, quite in his old manner, and then looked as though he had suddenly recollected the advanced years of Sir Julian himself, and subsided into the shelter of the motor without another word. ”

“ Mark gazed regretfully at the legs of his daughter and muttered under his moustache:
"They want someone to see to their clothes. Sarah does her best, but servants can't be expected——"
Lady Rossiter turned upon him a deepened gaze expressive of compassion, comprehension, and much else that was destined to remain unappreciated, as further sounds of arrival took Mark to the door.
"That was a cab, surely," said Lady Rossiter. "I suppose it's Miss Marchrose. That seems rather an expensive item for her."
"How dear of you, Lady Rossiter! I do believe you always think of every little thing." ”

“ Julian agreed.
"A tangible misfortune is nothing, compared to those perfectly indefinable indications of disturbance on what I suppose we may call the mental plane."
"A thing you can't lay hold of," said Mark, translating into his own phraseology.
"Those are much the worst," Miss Marchrose repeated, with conviction. "Sometimes I wonder if, years and years hence, when things are very much more advanced, those weapons, belonging to what Sir Julian called the mental plane, will come to be the only ones used."
"It would simplify war."
"I wonder," said Julian. "Atmosphere is a powerful weapon." ”

“ Julian wondered if it was altogether undesignedly that Miss Sandiloe instantly exclaimed:
"Are you going to recite to us, dear?"
"Yes, I am," said Miss Easter in loud, confident tones. "I always recite when I go out to tea."
The relentless inevitability of the proposed entertainment deprived even Miss Sandiloe of further utterance for the moment.
"You will not be asked again if you give yourself such a bad character," said Mark in a rather hopeless voice.
"Oh, yes, I shall. Lady Rossiter always likes me and Peekaboo to come; she said so! We can come whenever we like." ”

“ The class gathered up note-books and pencils and left the room, with much scraping of benches and shuffling of feet.
"Oh, Miss Marchrose, I do think you're clever," was the remark made by Iris, rather unnecessarily, to Lady Rossiter's way of thinking.
"Will they all pass that awful test?"
"Oh, no; 'getting it back,' as they call it, is the part they seem to find most difficult. Some of the less intelligent ones seem to have absolutely no sense of the meaning of words. If the shorthand outline isn't clear, they guess at the word and put in almost anything, whether it makes sense or not. ”

“ God forbid that I should condemn anyone—who am I, to judge of another?—but I can't pretend to you, Julian, that it won't become a question of conscience with me, if I find that a position of such responsibility towards my boys and girls is held by a woman who could throw a man over heartlessly, break her given pledge, just at the moment when he was more in need of her than ever before. ”

“ Alderman Bellew, looking more astounded than ever, gave a breathless nod of assent.
"And also," said Edna, smiling a little, "he happens to be an extremely attractive person. Consequently, when a young—a fairly young—woman spends her Saturday afternoons typing at the estate office, and then has herself escorted home afterwards, and keeps all her civility, and all her smiles, and all her conversation, for one particular person—well, one is inclined to wonder a little, that's all." ”

“ Edna raised her eyebrows and made a significant gesture. "Mark goes to-morrow?"
"Yes. Thank Heaven, I made him see that there is greater courage in turning one's back, sometimes, than in facing a danger. Every day that passes, as these last days have passed, the risk of an explosion becomes greater. It's like skating over a volcano."
"Nobody ever does skate over volcanoes," said Julian, almost automatically. ”

“ Neither could Julian, but he refrained from saying so.
"At one time, I rather wanted Miss Marchrose. Of course, I know she's not quite, absolutely, altogether one of ourselves—but still, as it's all to be so quiet—and then I could have got hold of a cousin to match her—but she wouldn't hear of it. Of course, she is older than I am."
"A good deal older, surely," said Sir Julian rather drily, contemplating the youthful blend of prettiness and vulgarity in front of him.
"Douglas," said Iris, with great suddenness, "do go away. ”

“ The fury in Fuller's voice was hardly suppressed.
"I believe that I am not censorious," said Lady Rossiter. "It is utterly foreign to my nature, and I would sooner blind myself to evil than look out for it—yet there are things which go against one's every instinct. This is a very little community and has always been a very peaceful and happy one. It hurts me very much, somehow, that there should be talk of the kind that I know has been going on lately."
"Mischief-making——" muttered Fuller fiercely and without completing his sentence.
"Officiousness is the curse of the age!" ”

“ I'm sorry," spoke Edna gravely. "One condemns no one—that's understood, of course. But you, who are working there all day and every day—you must know better than anyone how far it's all gone. I mean nothing that can't be spoken—oh, yes, you know—after all, we're both women. But there's the staff to think of—my staff that I'm proud of, and care for. Tell me, do they talk about Miss Marchrose and this insane infatuation of hers?"
"No—no, I don't think so—I hardly know...." hesitated Miss Farmer, very red, and obviously feeling her way.
"Thank God for that!" Lady Rossiter piously interjected. ”

“ I understand," said Julian.
"No, I didn't mind," she repeated forlornly enough. "I seem to have got to a place where I can't feel ashamed of anything—otherwise I suppose that I shouldn't be telling you this."
"I think," said Julian slowly, "that you can put that idea of shame quite out of your mind. It has always struck me as a very much misapplied emotion. There is nothing to be ashamed of in anything that is true. The only thing that is shameful is pretence. ”

“ Lady Rossiter smiled—a kind, faint smile, that, to her husband's perceptions, admirably succeeded in underlining her determination to avoid noticing Miss Farmer's slip.
"It's so wonderful of you, I think, to be so devoted to your work," she said. "That is one reason why I love the society of workers. They are always so eager about their work, and I think it is so wonderful of them."
Edna did not generally repeat herself, but the curious hostility vibrant in the air surrounding her philanthropic enterprise was making her nervous. ”

“ Iris, Douglas and Sir Julian all gazed upwards and became aware of Miss Easter, perilously grappling the bare limb of a leafless tree.
Followed Ruthie's inevitable discovery that the position so recklessly attained was both uncomfortable and insecure, her proclamation of immediate and excessive peril, and the issuing of annoyed ejaculations and peremptory advice from the upgazers gathered below.
"Better fetch a step-ladder at once. She'll only fall and hurt herself," said Iris. ”

“ The maid had not been with her very long, and obeyed the mandate with such wooden matter-of-factness that Lady Rossiter added gently:
"One doesn't want anyone to feel the least little—difference—in any way. We have all grown to have such false ideas of values...."
"Yes, m'lady," said Mason, looking so thoroughly bewildered that Lady Rossiter resolved to read extracts from Ruskin aloud to her while her hair was being brushed at nights.
She went downstairs slowly, to find Julian reading in the hall. ”

“ To which Iris rather inadequately responded by a high, squeaking enquiry as to Douglas's dreadful, dreadful gun and the possibility of its going off unexpectedly and killing her.
Miss Marchrose fell into step between Mark and Julian, her hands thrust boyishly into the pockets of her coat.
"Iris is afraid of getting more atmosphere than she bargained for," said Mark, with a laugh. "A shooting accident would make first-rate copy, I suppose."
"I wonder," said Julian. "The interest attaching to violent action always appears to me to be rather a fictitious one." ”

“ Miss Marchrose glanced up quickly at the last words, and although it was too dark for him to see her expression, Sir Julian again felt with certainty that some inexplicable telepathy had conveyed to him her thought.
"She is remembering Clarence Isbister," he told himself in a flash.
She spoke quietly enough.
"Yes, I know what you mean by that atmospheric tension—a sort of awful, unspoken sense of disaster and yet nothing happening. Only everything is happening, inside, and everyone knows it without being able to define it."
"Give me a good honest earthquake," said Mark Easter. ”

“ For the life of him, Julian could think of no rejoinder.
"I know that things of that kind always are known, and the people I've been thrown with, sooner or later, always turned out to have heard the story. Or if they hadn't," said Miss Marchrose in a voice of calm despair, "someone took the trouble to tell them."
"Officiousness is the crying sin of the age," Julian observed sententiously. ”

“ She was more tired than was usual with her, and her habitual serenity of mind was invaded by a certain discontent of which she did not seek to analyse the cause.
She looked at the hoar-frost, sparkling on the hedges, and at the chill blue of the sky, and perfunctorily told herself, as often before, "God's in His Heaven—all's right with the world"; recalled, in a vague and disjointed manner, fragments of R. L. Stevenson that she had often thought to be peculiarly applicable to herself, and remembered that two of her particular friends were a humble little dressmaker and a quaint old seafarer ”

“ He thought to himself bitterly, not for the first time, that a stronger man would reject the weapons of obvious, meaningless satire, but nervous irritability again and again drove him to seek an outlet in words that he despised.
In silence, he entered the College with Edna, and let her proceed to the Supervisor's room, aware that he had purposely timed their arrival for an hour when Fairfax Fuller would be engaged in one of the classrooms. Few things discomposed Mr. Fuller more than a feminine intrusion which could not be accounted for by a question of business. ”