E. Nesbit

“ An adventuress! He groaned aloud.
“Oh, fool! But you are punished!” he said; “she’s angry now—angrier even than that evening on the river, for she knows now that even the name you gave her to call you by was not the one your own people use. This comes of trying to act like an ass in a book.”
The months went on. The Brydges woman rallied him on his absent air. She spoke of dairymaids. He wondered how he could ever have found her amusing, and whether her vulgarity was a growth, or had been merely hidden.
And all the time Celia and the white house were dragging at his heart-strings. ”

“ And people aren’t wild beasts, you know: everything is always all right. And this man can talk; he knows about things. And he’s a gentleman. That ought to satisfy you—that and his references. Don’t worry, there’s a darling. Just be nice to him yourself. He’s simply a godsend in a place like this.”
“He’ll fall in love with you, Celia,” said the mother warningly.
“Not he!” said the daughter. But the mother was right.
Living alone in the queer little cottage, the world, his accustomed life, the Brydges woman, all seemed very far away. ”

“ At thirty-seven one should have outgrown the wild impulses of youth. He said this to himself, but all the same it was the next train to Yalding that he took.
Fate was kind; at Yalding it had almost always been kind. The glow of red firelight shone out over the snow through the French window among the brown jasmine stalks.
Mrs Sheepmarsh was out, Miss Sheepmarsh was at home. Would he step this way? ”

“ There’s a girl I mean to marry. I know she’ll say Yes, but I can’t ask her till I come back, of course. I don’t want to have any humbug or concealing things from you; you’ve always been so decent to me. I know you hate jaw, so I won’t go on about that. But I must tell you I met her first when she was serving in a tobacconist’s shop. And her mother lets lodgings. ”

“ We ought to like people for what they are, not for what they have, or what they work at.”
“If you weren’t so pretty, and hadn’t that delightful air of having just embraced the Social Gospel, you’d be a prig,” he said to himself. ”

“ And he read:
“Four-roomed cottage, furnished, in beautiful grounds. Part of these are fenced in for use of tenant of cottage. And in the absence of the family the whole of the grounds are open to tenant. When at home the family wish to be entirely private.”
“I never saw this at all,” said Selborne desperately. “My—I mean I was told it was furnished lodgings. I am very sorry I have no servant and no means of getting one. I will go back to London at once. I am sorry.” ”

“ He was growing hungry—it was past eight o’clock.
“I believe the old lady has forgotten my existence,” he said, and therewith opened his cottage door and went out into the lighter twilight of the garden. The shrubbery walks were winding. He took the wrong turning, and found himself entering on the narrow lawn. From the French window among the jasmine came lamplight—and voices.
“No servant, no food? My good mother, you’ve entertained a lunatic unawares.”
“He had references.”
“Man cannot live by references alone. The poor brute must be starving—unless he’s drunk.”
“Celia! ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1924, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 98 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”