Marie Van Vorst

“ But the gray gelding who strained at Grimace's flanks had no staying powers, although he was backed as strongly for place as was Grimace to win; as he fell back Bon Jour began to attract notice.
Bulstrode and De Presle-Vaulx exchanged glances over the absorbed figure of Jack Falconer. "She may yet win place," murmured the younger man.
As they came up the wide turf sweep that lay like an emerald sea crested by the dark waves of the hedges, as the horses rocked like ships over the obstacle—Bon Jour closely followed the favorite.
At the moment Miss Malines cried: "Oh, a jockey's off! ”

“ As Bulstrode stood in the window of his room at Westboro' Castle, his face turned toward the country, it seemed to beckon him. It called him from the park's end where suave and smooth the curving downs met the preciser contour of the eastern field; from hedges holding snugly in the roadways, the roads themselves running off on pleasant excursions to townships whose names are suggestive of romance, whose gentle beauties have mellowed with the ages which give them value and leave them perfect. ”

“ The fact that he was going back alone to find Mary Falconer there, was the big motif, and as he thought of the dark, charming envelope the castle made, holding the treasure she was, keeping her there for him, his heart beat so high that he knew there was nothing more for him to feel. The ecstasy he had witnessed in the little house his chivalry had purchased, the meeting of the husband and wife, come together there after so much unhappiness, put it poignantly to him that sterile love is a very unsatisfactory thing indeed. ”

“ Bulstrode interrupted her impatiently:
"It would be more to the purpose if he were a born bread-winner and she were a dairy-maid!"
"Jimmy, how vulgar you are!"
"Very—" he was wonderfully sarcastic for him—"money is a very vulgar thing, my dear friend; it's as vulgar as air and bread and butter. It is like all other clean, decent vulgarity, it can be abused, but it's necessary to life."
Mrs. Falconer opened her eyes wide on this new Bulstrode.
"Why, what has happened to you?"
He made a comprehensive gesture: "Oh, I am always supporting a family!" ”

“ He was able to say honestly: "Quite the most beautiful house I have ever seen."
"Yes, I think so too," she nodded. "It's not so important as many others but it's more perfect, more like a home."
Bulstrode sat back in his chair and tried to make her forget him. Between the fire and the shadow he wanted to watch her face from which he now saw that the beauty he remembered had not faded but had been transformed. She was beautiful in another way: the brilliant, blooming girl, fully blown at eighteen, with the dazzling charm of health, no longer existed in the Duchess of Westboro'. ”

“ There are, fortunately, certain things which, unlike money, can be shared only with certain people; and Bulstrode felt that the pleasure of this spring day, the charm of the opposite wood-glades into which he meditatively looked, the tranquil as well as the buoyant joy of life, were among those personal things so delightful when shared—and which, if too long enjoyed alone, bring (let it be scarcely whispered on this bewildering May morning) something like sadness! ”

“ Under the low eaves the bed-chamber shone out gay with chintz, fresh and sweet as a midwinter bouquet, the frostiness coming in around it through the slightly opened window, and there was the scent of the firs and the cedar wood that closely hemmed the old place in.
"Heavens!" thought the Duchess, half aloud. "How dreadfully in love Jimmy Bulstrode is, how dreadfully, faithfully in love!" And then she went on to say: "How dreadfully I am myself in love, and no one is hurrying to me!" ”

“ He repeated:
"Nothing but the woman in the world—? Honor—" Bulstrode quickly added, "and the woman—they are synonymous."
In watching his companion he wondered in how much of a tangle the Frenchman's mind was, and just how deep his feet were sunk in the meshes of conventionality and tradition, and decided: "Oh, is it too much to believe that he could——!"
As if in answer to his thoughts, De Presle-Vaulx spoke in the simplest manner possible:
"J'aime Molly." ”

“ He sniffed the odor of a familiar brand of cigar, and before he had quite plumbed the melancholy of the place to its depths, Jimmy Bulstrode had sunned out of one of the inner rooms, and the grasp of the friendly hand and the sound of the cheerful voice struck a chord in Westboro' that shook him.
"I've been like a fiend possessed," he said to Jimmy, in the evening when they found themselves once more before the fire. "I've scarcely known what I've been doing, or why; but I know one thing, and that is that I'm the most wretched man alive." ”

“ A few cheap casts, a few yards of mustard-toned burlaps, some Botticelli and Manet photographs, a mangy divan, and a couple of chairs were the furnishings. It had been impossible for Bulstrode to pass indifferently the venders of flowers in the festive, brilliant streets, and great bunches of giroflé, hyacinths, and narcissi overflowed the earthenware pitchers and vases with which the studio was plentifully supplied. The soft, sharp fragrance rose above the shut-in odor of the atelier, and, while Miss Desprey worked, her patron looked at her across waves of spring perfume. ”

“ Before Bulstrode the first reflection of the morning lay like silver on the sea.
When he finally went back into the room, Felicia Warren had not moved. Just as he left her, she sat, deep back into the divan, leaning on her hand, with something like the glory of a dream on her face. Standing in front of her, he said slowly:
"I'm entirely free. No one in the world depends upon me. I have no tie, or bond to my life. I have freedom and money. ”

“ He had the extraordinary idea that he could not himself be happy or make a woman happy over the dishonor of another man. It was old-fashioned and unworldly of Bulstrode: still, that was the way he was constituted.
It was on one of the imperious occasions when he felt as if he must follow her to the ends of the earth, that he steered his craft toward a little town on the edge of the Norman coast, to a very fashionable bit of France—Trouville. As soon as he understood that Mrs. Falconer was to be in Normandy for the race week, he packed his things and ran down and put up at the Hôtel de Paris. ”

“ On the dining-room floor, close to the window wide open to the icy night, lay a man's form, and over him bent another man cruelly, with all the animus of a bird of prey.
The under man was Ruggles, Bulstrode's butler, his eyes starting from their sockets, his mouth open, his color livid; he couldn't have called out, for the other man had seized his necktie, twisted it tight as a tourniquet around the man's gullet, and so kneeling with one knee on his chest, Waring held the big man under. ”

“ England, the heart of the countryside, freshened by December and drifted over by delicate breaths that are scarcely fog, and through which like a chrysanthemum seen behind ground glass the sun contrives to shine, the English country in December is one thing, London quite another.
Jimmy wandered across from Paddington to his destination, part of the time on foot, part of the time peering from a crawling hansom in immediate peril of collision with every other object that like himself lost bearings in the nightmarish yellow fog. ”

“ Mary Falconer with all the romance in her, and in spite of unusual cool reasonableness she had a feminine share—Jimmy with the sympathy of a kindly nature, a certain sting of jealousy at the decidedly perfect completeness of young love, and with a singularly wide-awake practical common sense for an impulsive gentleman whose pleasure in life is to pour into people's hands the things they most long for and cannot without him ever hope to enjoy! ”

“ After not a great deal of hesitation, toward the middle of a warm June, Bulstrode permitted himself to become the proprietor of a palace: not an inhabitant of the ordinary dwelling modelled after some old-world wonder, wherein American millionaires choose to spend their leisure in their own country—but of a real traditional palace, in whose charming rooms no object was younger than Bulstrode's great-grandfather, and where the enchanting women of the Fragonards and Nattiers almost made him, as he mused upon them, lose sight for a moment of a living lady. ”

“ From the floors below came the clear, bright sound of the Hungarian music in an American cake-walk and the odor of cigars and wines and the distinct suggestion of good things to eat came tempting their nostrils.
As Bulstrode followed the brilliant woman, a sense of defeat came over him and with less conviction he repeated:
"I am satisfied, but you, my friend, are not."
"Oh," shrugged Mary Falconer desperately, "you know I've no right to think, or feel, or criticise! I never pretend to run people's lives or to act the benefactor or to take the place of Fate." ”

“ The lines and files of soft-footed, impersonal servants, the perfect stilted attention, the silence, and the inhumanness of a man's lonely life, became intolerable to Jimmy Bulstrode. Even though Frances, Duchess of Westboro', had truly said that the castle was a delightful home, Bulstrode began to wonder what that word comprised or meant: certainly nothing like his occupation of another man's house or like any life that is lived alone. ”

“ The shrug of her shoulders was neither an indication of indifference nor a pretty desperation! it rather was a relinquishing of herself wholly to Fate—an abandon.
"What becomes of a happy woman who goes with the man she loves?"
"Her Fate," said her companion, "has no single history. She is most often disillusioned, many times tragic, and always disgraceful."
"Ah, hush," she said angrily, "you presume too far. If you only intended to lecture me—to condemn me—why did you come?"
At this sincerely humorous challenge Bulstrode smiled. ”

“ She spoke with interest of the races, and with confidence greater than she had hitherto evinced in the fortunes of her husband's racer—indeed she talked horse to Molly's edification, her husband's delight, and Bulstrode's admiration. All this—the sense that the party was, so to speak, with him—put Jack Falconer in the best of spirits, and the unruffled course of the dinner, and, above all, the humor of the elder of the two ladies, quite repaid Jimmy Bulstrode for the sure loss of his stakes.
"Does she really think that I have faith in the horse?" ”

“ You could surely spare me this little corner of Glousceshire."
"Spare it!" cried Westboro', "my dear chap, fancy how ripping to have you a landlord here! To catch and hold you so! We'll go over the whole place together. My agent shall put the matter through for you."
"Good God, no!" said Bulstrode, "don't let your man have wind of any such a deal. The place would go up like a rocket in price. If you really yourself care to withdraw as much as possible, that's the most you can do. But for God's sake keep off the place, like a good fellow." ”

“ His heart beat high at the fact of his deliverance. His gratitude was sincere—moreover, his thoughts were of an agreeable trend, and he was able to forget everybody else within twelve miles. Secure in his impersonality and in the indifference of his broad unseeing back, the lovers kissed and held hands.
Bulstrode wandered slowly up from the Versailles station to the Hôtel des Reservoirs, crossed the broad square of the Palace Court, found the pink and yellow façade more mellow and perfect than ever, and toward twelve-thirty strolled into the yard of the old hostelry. ”

“ Bulstrode smiled fatuously.
"Can't a man pay for his fads? I want to be painted by the person who did that portrait over there, Miss Desprey."
In a tiny studio—the dingy chrysalis of a Bohemian art student—Bulstrode posed for his portrait.
Each morning saw him set forth from the Ritz alert and debonaire in his fastidious toilet—-saw him cross the Place Vendôme, the bridge, and lose his worldly figure in the lax nonchalant crowd of the Quarter Latin. ”

“ And being nothing but a human man, he threw all his good resolves to the wind, and went down and stayed three days at Fontainebleau.
Out under the sky, where the elastic earth sprang softly beneath her feet and the embowered forests were sifted through with gold, Mary Falconer finally asked him, "And your doll, Jimmy? Have you broken her yet?" Bulstrode felt a guilty twinge, for he had not once thought of the little girl, nor did Mrs. Falconer's mention of her bring the subject near enough for Bulstrode to tell her the pretty story. ”