Mary Roberts Rinehart

“ Dick had come back twenty-four hours ago. Last night. And all this time——
“Where is he now?”
“He's not here, Walter.”
“He has gone away again, without seeing Elizabeth?”
David cleared his throat.
“He is still a fugitive. He doesn't himself know he isn't guilty. I think he feels that he ought not to see her until——”
“Come, come,” Walter Wheeler said impatiently. “Don't try to find excuses for him. Let's have the truth, David. I guess I can stand it.” ”

“ Annie had told Elizabeth in her room, and then had told Margaret. She had gone to Elizabeth at once, to see what she could do, but Elizabeth had been in her closet, digging among her clothes. She had got out her best frock and put it on, while her mother sat on the bed not even daring to broach the matter in her mind, and had gone out. There was a sort of cold determination in her that frightened Margaret. She had laughed a good bit, for one thing.
“She's terribly proud,” she finished. “She'll do something reckless, I'm sure. ”

“ They were vain, and especially they were sex-vain; good looking men were a target for every sort of advance. She transferred her loathing of him to the woman she suspected of luring him away from her, and lay for hours hating her.
She saw Leslie off in the morning with a perfunctory good-bye while cold anger and suspicion seethed in her. And later she put on her hat and went home to lay the situation before her mother. Mrs. Wheeler was out, however, and she found only Elizabeth sewing by her window.
Nina threw her hat on the bed and sat down dispiritedly. ”

“ You'll be going to the theater.”
He glanced away.
“Possibly. But we'll be rushing to get through. There's a lot to do. Amazing how business piles up when you find you're going anywhere. There won't be much time to play.” ”

“ When you want to do something you shouldn't you don't appear to need any excuse.”
But, on the whole, they managed to live together comfortably enough. They each had their reservations, but especially after Jim's death they tacitly agreed to stop bickering and to make their mutual concessions. What Nina never suspected was that he corresponded with Beverly Carlysle. Not that the correspondence amounted to much. He had sent her flowers the night of the New York opening, with the name of his club on his card, and she wrote there in acknowledgment. ”