E. Nesbit

“ And when she raised her eyes in that last look, that ended all things, she met full in her eyes the eyes of her lover—saw the love, the terror, the bewitchment in his face.
“Ah!” she breathed with a white smile that shook her audience with a deeper thrill than that laid on them by her eyes, “ah!” ”

“ The dance ended.
“It is pretty,” said the Aunt. “Do you remember Miss Clara Vaughan, Henry. She reminds me of her a little. How did you like it, Henry?”
“It’s remarkable—remarkable,” he said. “She is certainly a very talented young woman. She doesn’t look a day over eighteen. And yet I suppose she must be?”
“Oh! you may depend she’s over thirty,” said the Aunt confidently. “All these actresses are. But they always make up young. I’m sure it’s wonderful how they do it.”
“She is only twenty-one,” said Edmund shortly.
“Come out and take a turn,” said the Uncle. ”

“ Passion flickered, waned, and, on a pause of doubt and misgiving, tenderness dawned—tenderness, pity, remorse, regret, a growing horror and anguish, a growing knowledge of Heaven forfeited, of Hell made sure, a crescent terror, and dismay unspeakable, and under it all tenderness deepening, deepening, deepening, like a flood pressing against a barrier that it must at last break down. ”

“ I don’t want to preach, dear lad—young men will be young men, but I’m sorry to see it.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” lied Edmund.
“You shouldn’t look at her like that, you know,” the Uncle went on. “Lord! I’ve been young myself, and no one saw it but me. But you should be careful. There’s many a young man has had reason to wish he’d never entered such walls as these and——”
“I ought to tell you,” said Templar carefully, “that that lady and I are engaged to be married.”
“Lord!” said the Uncle, “there—the lights are down—not a word to your Aunt. It’s lucky she won’t own to needing glasses. ”

“ The idea of it repelled him—and he knew from her that it had at first repelled her also.
“But I had to do it,” she had said: “everyone does it now. Your repertoire’s not complete without a Salome dance with that horrible head. But I’ve made it something different from any of the others. For one thing, I don’t take the head off the sideboard as if it were the cold joint of beef. It just comes to me. Maskelyne and Devant fixed that up for me—and Denny works it. He’s not on in that scene.”
But now Templar had to see it. ”