Edgar Wallace

“ And now that he was fairly on his feet she shrank from the logical culmination of her plan, and she hated herself for her cowardice.
"I don't want you to go, you know that, Chick," she said slowly, "only it isn't right that you should stay."
"Gwenda is talking sense, Lord Pelborough," said the practical Mrs. Phibbs, nodding her imposing head. "People must work up to the level of their superiors. Why, you're scared to death of these flibbertigibbet Society folk, and that isn't right. If you don't go up, Chick, you go down. ”

“ Chick had seen that slow uplift of fringed eyelid in a score of cinema plays, and yet he did not recognise it. She also had seen the movement and many others. The educative value of the cinema is not properly appreciated by outsiders.
"What did you think of her?" he asked, as soon as he got back to the flat.
"A very, very pretty little girl," said Gwenda.
"Isn't she?" echoed Chick. "Poor little soul, she is so lonely, too. ”

“ And then she received a letter from Chick. It was signed in his sprawling hand "Pelborough," and she was thrilled.
Before the day was over every member of the staff, from the engaging-manager to the meanest member of the outside staff, knew that she was invited to tea next Sunday, and that Lord Pelborough hoped that she was no worse for her alarming experience, and that he thought the weather was very changeable, and that he was "hers sincerely."
"That's what I liked about him—his sincerity," said Miss Farland to her assembled friends. "A man like that couldn't tell a lie. ”

“ It does not matter whether I am a marquis or a dustman. It does not matter whether you work for your living or you are a lady moving in the highest social circles: if you love me and I love you, nothing else matters."
He posted the bulky envelope, satisfied in his mind that he had set one pair of feet on the right way. He was staggered the next morning to receive a reply to his letter, although it could have been delivered only the previous night, and this time Miss Farland wrote seventeen pages. Chick's letter had been so helpful! ”

“ Mrs. Phibbs very seldom talked about her husband.
"He is dead, isn't he?" asked Chick gently.
"He is," said that brisk woman. "and in Heaven, I hope, though I have my doubts."
"Besides, Chick," said Gwenda, "we shall have very little time together here. The play may run for another year, and now that I've gone back to the cast I shall be fully occupied."
Chick said nothing to this. A few days before he was passing down Bond Street on the top of a 'bus, and saw Gwenda and Lord Mansar coming from a tea-shop, and they had driven away in Mansar's car. ”

“ SUDDEN affluence affects different people in different ways. The Marquis of Pelborough had succeeded, through the death of his uncle, to a title which brought with it nothing more substantial in the shape of estate than one acre of waste garden and a brick cottage badly in need of repair. "Chick" Pelborough was less shocked by his accession to the title than he was by the acquisition of wealth. ”

“ Chick, left to carry on, had found a derelict company on his hands, until the drill of an engineer, who had already given up hope, "struck oil" in amazing quantities.
"Your future is settled now, Chick," said Gwenda Maynard, at the conclusion of a family council, in which his housekeeper as by right participated. "You should buy a nice house in the country and take your place in Society."
"But I don't want to go into the country," said Chick, aghast at the prospect. "The country bores me, Gwenda. ”

“ He had a very great respect for all women, and, being something of an idealist, the thought that this pretty child might be hurried into matrimony with a man she did not love both depressed and horrified him. ”

“ That's the wonderful thing about real gentlemen—they are always sincere."
So she went to tea, and Gwenda was very nice, but very disconcerting, because Miss Farland's first impression was that Gwenda was his lordship's young lady. As to Chick, he was his simple, friendly self, and discussed such matters as the weather and the Cup Tie Final (she was interested in neither subject) with the greatest freedom. ”

“ She "lived in" with a hundred other girls, and it was possible, as he evidently knew, for her to slip down to a door which communicated with the warehouse and the living quarters alike—being an emergency exit for the girls in case of fire—and to open that door to Mr. Blanbury and his associates, to two of whom he introduced her. ”

“ Miss Farland drew a happy sigh.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1932, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 91 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. ”