Katherine Cecil Thurston

“ Clodagh looked down at the cheque.
"I have come to do my duty!" she said, with a faint laugh. "Here is your thousand pounds, darling. May it be enough to buy everything in life worth having!"
Her voice faltered on the last words; but the touch of emotion was lost in a sudden embrace from Nance.
"Oh, you darling!—you love!" she cried. "A thousand pounds! I feel a queen!" She drew back a little, flushing with excitement and pleasure; and opened the cheque almost reverently. "And can I really, really get a thousand pounds by signing my name on the back of this? ”

“ A wondering admiration for Asshlin had always held a place in these jaded after-sensations—a species of hero-worship for one who could turn into bed at four in the morning and emerge at nine with all the vigour and vitality of the most virtuous sleeper. He had never fully realised that to men of Asshlin's stamp dissipation, excitement, and action are potent stimulants, calling forth all the superfluous nervous energy that by nature they possess. While the tide of life runs high about such men, they are borne forward, buoyed up by their own capacity for living and enjoying. ”

“ Lady Frances looked up from the cigarette she was drawing from her case.
"Illusions!" she said. "Why, life is all illusions at your age!" She paused; then, after a moment's silence, went on again, but in a slower, more considered voice: "You thought I was jesting at dinner, when I asked you to come south with me. But I wasn't. I meant it." She struck a match and lighted her cigarette. "You don't know how you would enjoy Nice. You lost yourself in the delights of roulette at Venice. Think what Monte Carlo would be!"
With a sudden tumultuous confusion, Clodagh flushed. ”

“ Knowledge of duty done—be the doing ever so tardy—is the best stimulus for the wayfarer in the world's by-ways; and Clodagh, as she stepped from her train on that February afternoon, was conscious of some such reassuring certainty.
In the last two years, life for her had been a thing of physical inaction, accompanied by a subtle process of mental development. The night of tempestuous excitement—when, in a whirl of pain, chagrin, and passionate self-contempt, she had repudiated Venice and her newly made friends—had been the birth of a fresh phase in her existence. ”

“ There was silence while they seated themselves; then Clodagh, looking meditatively in front of her at the evil face of one of the stone satyrs, spoke suddenly and impulsively.
"I envy you!" she said.
"You envy me?" There was a curious, almost an eager tone in Deerehurst's voice; but she was too preoccupied to hear it.
"All people are to be envied who have power—and freedom. I get so tired of myself sometimes—so rebellious against myself! I am always doing the things I should not do, and failing to do the things I should. I am hopeless!" ”

“ Clodagh took the telegram. Without thought or interest she tore it open, and her eyes passed mechanically over the written words. Then suddenly it slipped from between her fingers, blew a little way across the close grass, and fluttered down over the edge of the chasm.
As it disappeared, she turned. Her face was entirely without colour; her eyes had the dazed look of one who is confronted with a great light.
"Hannah!" she cried—"Hannah! there is a God after all!—there is a God!" She swayed suddenly; and the old servant, rushing forward, caught her in her arms. ”

“ A sound of mockery and despair escaped Asshlin.
"Ah, you may well ask!" he said—"you may well ask! 'Tis the question I've been putting to myself every hour since they laid me here. You know the world, James. You know what the world will be to two pretty, penniless girls. And they're so unconscious of it all! That's the sting of it. They're so unconscious of it all! They care for me; they cling to me as if I were a good man, and in five years' time they may be cursing the hour they were born." A fresh groan was wrung from him.
A look of apprehension crossed Milbanke's face. ”

“ In a house of death, the hours that succeed the burial are, if possible, even more melancholy than those that precede it. The sensations of awe and responsibility have been dispersed, but as yet it is impossible to resume the commonplace routine of life. As Milbanke passed through the gateway and walked up the drive, ploughed into new furrows by the long procession of cars that had followed the coffin, he was deeply sensitive to this impression; and it fell upon him afresh with a chill of desolation as he entered the door, still standing open, and moved slowly across the deserted hall. ”

“ She played boldly, with a certain reckless grace born of complete unconsciousness. At last fortune favoured her, and she won. Deerehurst, still standing close beside her, saw the expression of her face, saw the careless—the almost inconsequent—air with which she accepted her spoils; and, noting both, he touched her arm.
"You are a true gambler!" he said very softly. "You care nothing for gain or loss. You play for the play's sake!"
And Clodagh, with her mind absorbed and her eyes on the roulette-board, gave a quick, high-pitched, unthinking laugh. ”

“ From the wide dignity of the Grand Canal with its ancient palaces, its mysterious stream of silent traffic, its occasional note of modern life, to the fascinating glimpses of narrower waterways where the women of the people, with uncovered heads, leaned out of their windows to exchange the day's gossip with a neighbour across the water—all was a delight, something engrossing and unique. Clodagh had no desire to speak as they glided forward; and when the hotel steps were reached, she suffered herself to be assisted from the gondola scarcely certain whether she was dreaming or awake. ”

“ Outside in the sunshine of the yard, she laughed again.
"Hannah is an old duck!" she said. "She is always getting as cross as two sticks, and then forgetting all about it. Nobody could help teasing her. But where's Larry gone to? Larry! Larry!"
There was a pause, a stamping of horse's hoofs, and the sound of a voice whispering affectionate injunctions to an unseen animal; then young Laurence Asshlin emerged from the stables, leading his chestnut cob.
He was a well-made, long-limbed boy of fourteen, with skin as smooth and eyes as clear as Clodagh's own. ”

“ A moment later Clodagh emerged upon the sunny terrace, followed by her dog Mick.
At any period of existence, four years is a span of time to be reckoned with. But when four years serves to bridge the gulf between childhood and womanhood, its power is well-nigh limitless. As Clodagh stepped through the long window of her room and came slowly out into the morning light, it would have been a close observer who would, at a first glance, have recognised the unformed girl of four years ago in the graceful, well-dressed woman moving forward through the Italian sunshine. ”

“ If London is large in one sense, it is socially as small as any other capital; and the man who wishes to seek the society of a member of his own set finds his way rendered very easy.
And in all matters of tact and subtlety Deerehurst was an adept. If, in Nance's eyes, his comings and goings were things to cavil at, he knew exactly how to arrange them for Clodagh's consideration, so that the gift of a bunch of flowers—the offer of seats at a theatre—the loan of a horse—or the retailing of an amusing bit of gossip seemed the merest courtesies from one friend to another. ”

“ For a moment Milbanke was at a loss; then all at once he comprehended his host's meaning. His gaze dropped from the picture to Clodagh, sitting below it. Above the dark riding habit and above the satin coat, it seemed that the same olive skin, the same level eyebrows and clear hazel eyes confronted him.
"I see!" he said quietly. "I see! A very peculiar case of family likeness."
He spoke affably, casually, in all innocence; but scarcely had the words left his lips than he precipitately wished them back. With a loud laugh, Asshlin struck the table with his hand. ”

“ But slowly these sounds had lessened. The laughter had ceased; and the entertainment out-of-doors had died down to the murmuring of two men's voices and the slow pacing of a couple of pairs of feet up and down the terrace beneath the card-room window. At last even this had ended with the heavy shutting of a door; and, save for the occasional distant sound of a closing window, silence reigned in the house.
The sixth rubber was drawing to its close, when the door of the card-room opened quietly and Lady Diana entered, looking slightly tired and pale. ”

“ The Clodagh who had scoured the woods, scrambled over the rocks, and galloped across the lands of Orristown was no longer visible. Another being, infinitely more distinguished, infinitely more attractive—and yet vaguely deprived of some essential quality—had taken her place. In the four years that had passed since she left Ireland she had, from being a child, become a woman; and below the new beauty that nature had painted upon her face lay an intangible, a poignantly suggested regret for the girlhood that had been denied her. ”

“ He is an honest, simple, trustworthy man—who loves you."
The tone of his voice came to Clodagh with great distinctness. It seemed the only living thing in a world that had suddenly become dead. While she had been sitting rigid and erect in the stern of the gondola, everything had altered to her mental vision—everything had undergone a fundamental change. The purple twilight; the mysterious night scents; the breezes blown in from the lagoon had become intangible, meaningless things. She was conscious of nothing but Gore's clear words, of her own soul, stripped of its self-deception. ”

“ Clodagh bent quickly and kissed his hot, drawn face with passionate affection; then, as if fearing to trust herself, she turned hastily and passed out of the room.
Instantly the two men were alone, Asshlin turned to his guest.
"James," he said agitatedly, "I haven't thought much about the Almighty in these last years; but I give you my word, I have prayed that I might see you before I die."
"My dear Denis, don't! I beg you not to excite yourself. I implore you——"
Asshlin made a harsh sound of impatience.
"Don't waste breath over a dying man," he said roughly. ”

“ Almost immediately a second cab appeared, and, finding it at her disposal, Clodagh hailed it eagerly and gave the address of the flat.
As the horse sped away in the direction of her home, she sat almost motionless, her only gesture being to lift her hands to her eyes from time to time, as if to shut out some near and unpleasant vision. Life in its crudest, its most repulsive aspect stared at her out of the darkness. ”