Richard Marsh

“ Mr Coventry shivered. Was this woman making love?
"I married my first husband, Mr Coventry, to please my mother. When I marry again I mean to please myself."
"What--what time is this train due in Brighton?"
"Never mind what time the train is due in Brighton." She smiled.
Some men, who are about to pop the question, delight in the shyness of the maiden. Was it possible that she delighted in the shyness of the youth? ”

“ Oh, Mr Macleod, I never thought you would behave to me like this!"
Miss Bayley fairly succumbed. She buried her face in her hands and ran crying from the room. Mr Macleod, left behind, was thunderstruck. He realised what any man, with even a little knowledge of the world, would have seen from the first.
"She loves me! What have I done?" He sank in a chair and he too buried his face in his hands. Presently he rose again. "Poor, pure soul! She is the best woman in the world!" ”

“ With that genius for blundering which Miss Lorraine seemed to have all at once developed, swinging round, she grasped by both her hands the nearest gentleman, who happened to be General Taylor, one of Lady Pickard's oldest and most particular friends.
"Why, Frankie, I don't take it to be very kind of you not to be taking any notice of me at all. Scotland Yard! you're not Frankie! You're old enough to be his grandpa!" She returned to Stanley Brock; as if the fault were his. "What are you giving us? This isn't my Frank! I'm not collecting fossils just yet, if it's all the same to you." ”

“ I did not intend to allow myself to be snubbed by Miss Reeves without a struggle. She was no relative of Philip's. But she might just as well have been; because, with one accord, they all proceeded to take her part.
"My dear Molly," said Margaret, speaking as if hers were the last words which could be said, "you are wrong. In shoes like yours you're a prisoner. You mayn't be conscious of it; and you won't be till you try others. Then you'll find out, and you'll be sorry that you didn't find out before. I want to be mistress of my feet; I don't want to be their servant. ”

“ Her offer to elucidate the situation, or, at any rate, the part which she had played in it, made with all humility, was not greeted with any show of heartiness. Rather the faces in front of her hardened, as if her words added fuel to the fire of their resentment.
"You're a pretty piece, upon my word! You look a fine lady, and no error! Anyone would think you were one, to hear you talk. You impudent cat, to try to carry it off with us. You shut your mouth, and don't you speak unless you're spoken to, or we'll soon shut it for you, and don't you make any mistake, my beauty. ”

“ Miss Macleod turned towards her nephew.
"This is my nephew. Exercise your power upon him."
"Aunt!" cried the Rev. Alan.
Miss Vesey laughed.
"Shall I?" she asked.
"You have my permission. You say you can do with men and women what you will. He will be a rich man one of these fine days. Make him marry you."
The curate's distress was piteous.
"Aunt! Have you any sense of shame?"
"Suppose I try," observed Miss Vesey, her face alive with laughter. "I'm sure I'm poor enough, and I'm already connected with the clergy."
"Aunt, I entreat you, come away. If you will not come, then I must go alone. ”

“ She would not let him stay. They parted, this queer pair! He dined, not at his hotel, but at a restaurant on the Front; dined well! When he left it was with that good digestion which waits on appetite. He walked as if he walked on air. He certainly had the gift of making history quickly.
When he reached the hotel, an acquaintance stopped him at the door.
"The great Sarah is here."
"The great who?"
"Sarah! Miss Freemantle! The five-times millionaire."
Mr Coventry looked a trifle bored.
"I'm not interested in the lady."
"The deuce you aren't! I am; and, by Jove, I wish she were in me!" ”

“ Frank Pickard stared at her as if she were some creature born of a nightmare. Was this the dainty damsel whom he had been worshipping from a distance and who had seemed still daintier when he had been brought into close neighbourhood with her yesterday? What hideous metamorphosis had taken place in her between this and then? If he could only have taken to his heels and run!
He was not to escape so easily. Having received no answer from Stanley Brock, she repeated her inquiry.
"I say, old man, look lively! Didn't you hear me ask you if Sir Frank Pickard was anywhere about?" ”

“ And we will be married before anyone has an inkling of what it is that we intend."
"Mr Macleod, is it an elopement you propose?"
"Ellen, it is."
The little man was shaking like a leaf.
"I never heard of such a thing in my life."
"Nor did I dream that I should make such a proposition to a living woman--but needs must when the devil drives."
The lady began to cry.
"Alan, I must say you have not a flattering way of putting things."
"What avails flattery at such a moment as this. For Heaven's sake, don't cry. I have heard you say yourself that you don't believe in long engagements." ”

“ I hated to be made small. I hated games. I hated--during those moments, in which I was tearing off my frock, I nearly felt as if I hated everything. But just in time, it was borne in to me how wicked I was. It was not their fault if I was a little donkey; it was my own. They were not to blame if I had allowed my education to be neglected, and had not properly appreciated the paramount importance of tennis, and ping-pong, and golf, and all the other, to my mind, somewhat exasperating exercises which came under the generic heading of "games." ”

“ Her attention was directed to the figure of Mrs Bankes, who was still recumbent on the floor, though fortunately Penfold had somewhat softened the vigour of her attentions. The new-comer stared at the prostrate lady.
"Clara! That's not Clara!"
"Not Clara? Don't talk rubbish! It's her, right enough!"
"I don't know who that is, and I don't know what you're playing off on me, but I do know that's not Clara Harvey. I've known her pretty well all my life; if I don't know her, I don't know who does, and I tell you that's no more Clara Harvey than I am." ”

“ I do not wish to breathe a word against my own family. I am perfectly certain that no one could be fonder of Nora and the boys than I am. Yet I am inclined to think that there are times, when if one must confess, it is just as well to do it to someone who is not exactly a relation. One's relatives are apt to take such a narrow view. I am convinced that no one could have taken a broader view than Mr Sanford did ”

“ Miss Bayley sighed; she felt that she was expected to sigh. "She is of the world worldly. Her thoughts are fixed on temporalities. Being possessed of great riches, to which I am the natural heir, the continual desire of her life is that I--I should marry."
The Rev. Alan stammered a little at the end. Miss Bayley perceptibly started. That was the continual desire of her life too. She wondered if it was going to be gratified at last.
"That you should marry? Oh, Mr Macleod!"
"I need not tell you that, in such a matter, her desire would not weigh with me in the least. The true priest is celibate." ”

“ Mr Coventry had stopped. He seemed to be a little at a loss.
"Then, somehow or other, I--I got introduced to her."
"Did you, indeed? How strange!"
"Don't laugh at me, Miss Hardy. The woman's my aversion. She's old enough to be my mother, or--or my aunt, at any rate."
"One's aunt may be younger than oneself."
"She isn't, by a deal. She's a hideous, vulgar old monstrosity."
"You appear to have a strong objection to the lady."
"I have. It--it sounds absurd, but she's always after me. She must mistake me for her son." ”

“ I gasped, "that the Princess Margaretta is not a widow, not--not a relation of the Romanoffs, but--but a small grocer's actual wife?"
"Not such a small grocer's as you might think. I could give you a banker's reference which perhaps would startle you. It isn't always them, you know, who carry things off with the biggest air who are the biggest."
"But," I cried, "are you aware, sir, that the person whom you assert to be your wife, has, here in Beachington, laid claim to Royal rank?"
The little man's air of modest pride disappeared with even comic suddenness. ”

“ The young lady, observing his silence, commented on it in what seemed almost a spirit of gratuitous malice.
"I am afraid, Mr Davison, we do not please you."
"Mdlle. de Fontanes!"
"Or perhaps you are not so eloquent as Mr Lintorn--ever?"
"No, never."
Mdlle. de Fontanes spoke so hesitatingly, and in such low tones, that only Mr Davison caught the words she uttered next.
"Perhaps--there is a certain manner--which--only comes with age."
"You seem to think that I am nothing but a boy. I will prove to you that at least in some things I am a man." ”

“ Miss Macleod, who did not happen just then to be looking in the opposite direction, smiled grimly. Owing to the peculiarity of her physical configuration everything about her was grim--even her smile.
"I am glad to hear it," she observed.
The Rev. Alan struggled himself free from the lady's powerful embrace. His distress was tragic in its intensity.
"This--this is some extraordinary--"
"Happiness!" cried the lady, and again she clasped him in her arms. "Your happiness is mine! It has been my life-long dream to be married to a clergyman; is not my father one already?" ”

“ There is nothing more galling than the consciousness that the person with whom you are angry is in the right, and knows it, and is therefore indisposed to take any notice of your tantrums, being resolved, do what you will, not to take you seriously. That was what used to make me so mad with Mr Sanford; he would not regard me as if I were a serious character. He would persist in treating me as if I were a child. Even if I did sometimes behave like one, it ought to have made no difference, since at seventeen you are not a child, and can behave exactly as you please, because you are grown up. ”

“ As I had surmised, the ice was in perfect condition as regards its surface. Sufficiently elastic to enable the blade of one's skates to bite on to it, smooth enough to offer no impediment to their onward glide. One skimmed over it almost without conscious effort. The ecstasy of doing something; the sense of freedom which it gave; the delight of tearing through the keen, clear atmosphere; of feeling it upon one's cheeks--ruffling one's hair--exhilarating one's whole being--breathing it in great gulps into one's lungs--these were the things I needed. ”

“ Mr Davison rang for his shaving-water, and the waiter who brought it was so indiscreet as to notice the gentleman's condition--the condition, that is, of what has been called his optic.
"Mais, monsieur est blessé!"
Mr Davison's knowledge of French was not peculiar for its extent, but it was sufficient to render him aware that the man exaggerated the actual fact.
"Get out!" he shouted.
The man got out, having learned, it is to be hoped, a lesson in tact. When Mr Davison began to shave he found that his hand was shaky. His temper was ruffled, his head ached most dreadfully. ”

“ The agony of fear which was in Philip Sanford's voice as he asked the question calmed me as if by magic.
"I think so; I seem to be standing in what feels like mud."
"Can you get your arms on to the ice and raise yourself? If you do it carefully it will probably bear you." ”

“ It is not, at any time, the work of only a moment to put on a brand new pair of properly-fitting gloves. Everybody knows that, who knows anything at all. They require coaxing. Especially is this the case when your hands are cold. And certainly the task is not rendered easier by the knowledge that you are being observed by critical, supercilious eyes, towards whose owner you entertain a touch of resentment. Those gloves would not go on. The consciousness that Mr Sanford was staring at me with obvious amusement made me, perhaps, more awkward than I should have been. ”

“ Mr Lintorn wiped the soap off his razor; he had a steadier hand than Mr Davison.
"I've behaved like an ass all round."
"I can believe it easily. Indeed, you are, in general, an ass. You're a nice fellow, but you are an ass. You'll grow out of it in time, but you'll have to do a deal of growing first." Mr Lintorn glanced at his friend, who was pacing round the room. "How's your eye?"
"Oh, hang my eye! Lintorn, how much do you think I've lost within the last three nights? Five hundred pounds!" ”

“ But then I had never before been within miles and miles of the Thames,--except over London Bridge, and that kind of thing. I had never been in a boat in my life, whether large or small, on sea or river. Such was my ignorance, that I had not been aware that women ever rowed--especially in little weeny boats all alone by themselves. The workmanlike manner in which Bertha and Margaret had rowed off with their mother had filled me with amazement,--they had gone off with nothing on their heads, or shoulders, or even their hands. They had a heap of wraps in the bottom of the boat ”

“ In course of time Alan died abroad--very much abroad, and in more senses than one. Then, for the first time, Janet appeared upon the scene. She paid for her brother's funeral, and took his only child, a boy, back with her to England. The child's mother, who was nothing and nobody, had died--charitable people said, murdered by her husband--soon after her infant's birth. So his aunt was the only relation the youngster had.
Janet was a spinster. She had ideas of her own, and plenty of them. Her dominant idea was that in her nephew the family sun should rise again in splendour. ”

“ We shall have to show you as an illustration of what we can achieve in that direction. You look a perfect picture."
"A dream of loveliness!" cried Miss Reeves. "Now, if I were a man, you're just the sort of girl I'd like to marry. Even as a mere girl I'd like to kiss you."
She put her hands lightly on my bare shoulders, and she did kiss me--on both cheeks, and on the lips--there and then. It was most bewildering. I had not looked for that sort of thing from her. But Mrs Sanford's words warmed the very cockles of my heart. ”

“ I took that box of gloves upstairs and I banged them on the dressing-table. When I looked into the glass I saw that my cheeks were glowing, and my eyes too. It was plain that I was in a perfect passion. The most exasperating part of it was that I knew what a fright bad temper made of me. It always does of your black sort of people.
Never did I meet anyone with a greater capacity for rubbing you the wrong way than Mr Sanford. And so autocratic! ”

“ She has two children. Mother and children all live with him. He has two other daughters, both unmarried. Between them poor Crookshanks hardly dare call his soul his own. And yet Crookshanks was not only making up to the Princess, but, in Grimshaw's judgment, he was proving himself a dangerous rival.
I told Grimshaw that it was only because Crookshanks was a greater idiot than himself that he was not the greatest idiot in Beachington. I don't stand on ceremony with Grimshaw--I never have done.
"I don't know." Grimshaw mopped his brow. The slightest exertion makes him painfully warm. ”