Various

“ Stephen put his hand in his breast pocket and half drew out a letter, and then let it drop back, and then he walked a little apart from Deena and looked at her thoughtfully, as if trying to readjust his previous ideas of her to the present coquetry of her appearance. The way her thoughts had flown to Simeon when a desert island existence was mooted seemed as if she did care, and Stephen hated to give pain, and yet the letter had to be answered, and the opportunity was not likely to occur again. The thing he had always admired most in his friend’s wife was her common sense—to that he trusted. ”

“ She knew that he had gone—that her appeal was to the empty air, and she flung herself on the sofa in a frenzy of sobs. But the cry reached Stephen in the hall, where he stood battling with himself against his yearning for one more look, one more word to carry with him, and at the sound his resolution melted like wax in the flame of his passion. With a bound he was back in the room, on his knees beside her, soothing her with tenderest endearments—pouring out the fullness of his love.
“Must I go, Deena?” he pleaded. “Must I leave you when I know you love me? And for what?—a search for the dead!” ”

“ It is idle to try to put into words what I owe French.”
“And he feels nothing but self-reproach for having urged you to go,” said Deena, faintly. “Not that anyone could have foreseen the miserable outcome.”
“It isn’t miserable!” Simeon answered, almost fiercely. “In many respects it is all that I hoped. I have made a name for myself—there will not be a scientific library in the world without my book, when once it is issued. People have died for lesser achievements than that.” And then he added, more gently: “Not that it could be considered as an achievement without French’s aid.” ”

“ Allys turned half about—for two breaths at least she had a snobbish impulse to overlook Billy and hurry away. Billy was tall, with a face like a young Greek god—but how greet him there with the Hammond girl to see, in a checked suit, patently ready-made, with the noisiest of shirts, a flowing bright red tie, and a sunburned straw hat? If it were only Adair, she would not mind—Hilary was, she knew, very much more critical. She might have run away, but that she caught the Hammond girl’s look—amusement and satisfaction struggled through it, although the young lady tried hard to mask them. ”

“ Would he dwell upon the shape of an albatross, when there must be memories—beautiful, glowing memories—between them to recall? Pen and ink was a wretched medium for love, but the heart of the world has throbbed to its inspiration before now. Why, if a woman like Mrs. Ponsonby shared his hearth, he would let Tierra del Fuego, with its flora and its fauna, sink into the sea and be damned to it, before he’d put the hall door between himself and her. His own front door had suggested the idea, and he shut it with a bang. ”

“ It was a great pleasure, so Miss Herron assured all her friends, to feel sure that her little cousin was for a few months at least to be brought under the influence which had shaped the lives of her New England forebears. For the child to live in Herron House, to grow in knowledge of her race, so splendidly patriotic, so consistently rich and cultivated from the days when Barham was part of a colony, seemed to the proud old lady a real necessity for Lucy. She must never forget that she was a New England gentlewoman; she must learn the traditions, stiffen with the pride of her race. ”

“ Deena was wearing the old blue dress he had recommended to her the night before. It could not be from coquetry—she was above coquetry—but perhaps she had put it on to recall associations; to remind him of the close bonds of friendship that existed between them in those pleasant autumn days that followed Simeon’s departure. Stephen was not very learned in the make of women’s frocks, but he understood color and could appreciate how that steely-blue made her complexion glow warm as ivory and her hair like copper. ”

“ Perhaps no mortals deserve happiness, and certainly few attain it, but if ever a man and a woman were likely to find satisfaction in each other’s companionship, it was the lovers sitting hand in hand before Stephen’s fire.
Most women of twenty-four have had some experience of love as a passion; they have known its fullness or its blight, or more often still, they have frittered it away in successive flirtations, but with Deena it had come as a revelation and been consecrated to one. To be sure, she had tried to crush and repress it, but it had persisted because of its inherent force. ”

“ Every day brought a fresh suggestion covered by a check. Ben was invited to select a high-stepping gray horse—a pair of cobs—a tiny brougham—a victoria—a piano—a pianola. Deena shopped till she almost sank exhausted, and yet the requests kept coming. If dear Mrs. Ponsonby didn’t mind the trouble, perhaps Polly might be warmer with sable rugs—perhaps an extra sofa in her room might induce her to lie down oftener—perhaps a few of those charming lace and linen tablecloths might make her feel like giving little dinners at home instead of fatiguing herself by going out to find her amusements. ”

“ With any old history book staring them in the face, they treated Jane Shore precisely as though she were the heroine of a dime novel. They had no qualms. They lopped great wads from her past, and huge excrescences from her present, and by the time that she had reached the last act, the audience sat dazed at the delicate beauty of her character. No masculine playwright could have done as much. Possibly if the purifiers of Lady Jane Shore elected to dramatize the career of Messalina, they would make of her a combination of Joan of Arc and Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall. ”

“ He was a just man but close, and the stipend he gave his wife for their monthly expenses barely kept them in comfort, but Deena had been brought up in the school of adversity, and had few personal needs. Her house absorbed all her interest, as well as stray pennies. The old mahogany furniture was polished till it shone; the Ponsonby silver tea set looked as bright as if no battering years lay between it and its maker’s hand a century ago; the curtains were always clean; the flowers seemed to grow by magic—and Deena still parted her wonderful bronze hair and kept it sleek. ”

“ Every now and then one hears anew in London drawing rooms of some amusing saying of hers, for she is as gracious and graceful a conversationalist as of yore, and with three young and blooming American duchesses to rival her, still stands well apart from and ahead of them all, at least so far as the homage of our smart and titled society can be accepted as proof of a woman’s position. ”

“ Half of circusing is a skin game all through—and I’ve done my share of the skinning. But to be skinned twice—me, I. Buck, proprietor—and the last time the worst, but——”
“Twenty can play it as well as one!” the parrot yelled, cocking his eye over the edge of the cage.
It was an evil scowl that flashed up from under the plug hat, but Elkanah in his new joy was oblivious.
“Me a man that’s been all through it from A to Z—my affections trod on, all confidence in females destroyed and nothing ahead of me all the rest of my life! No, sir, I never want to hear of a circus again. ”

“ Ben followed him to the front door, whispering like a conspirator and glancing furtively up the stairs. There was a childish streak in the boy’s nature that gloried in a confidence; the joy of the secret nearly made up for the sorrow of the fact. But secrets and sorrows were soon put out of his head, for a crucial moment had come to the young Minthrops—one we anticipate and are never quite prepared for.
As he ran upstairs, after seeing Stephen off, he met Deena, evidently looking for him. ”

“ The lot of women is to wait, and they do it under a pressure of nervous strain that makes it slow torture. No turn of fortune could have surprised Deena at this crisis, for her imagination had pictured every possibility.
When a summer storm blackened the sky she saw the yacht tempest-tossed and sinking, driven before a tropical cyclone; when the sun shone, she fancied it sailing gayly into port with Simeon restored to health, expecting to find her as he left her—the willing slave, the careful housewife—and she shivered and went pale at the thought ”

“ In May the house in Harmouth returned to her keeping, the lease having expired, and she left the Sixty-fifth Street household with reluctance to take up her old life. In the great city she had been but a human atom. Her conduct, her unhappiness, her very existence mattered to no one there, except, perhaps, to Ben and Polly, who were as tender and sympathetic as such vigorous people could be; but in Harmouth every creature was interested in Simeon’s fate, and watched Deena with a curiosity she found maddening. ”

“ As an amiable, broad-minded woman, she does not love her own country so much that she cannot find a place in her heart for London, too, and that which chiefly appeals to her in our elderly, sprawling, sooty, amusing and splendid old capital is the fact that she finds it interesting.
There you have one explanation, at least, of the apparent phenomenon of the ever-growing circle of American women in the very heart of our biggest city. ”

“ They seem to find a peculiar interest in a woman who has “lived”—no matter how. If, in ransacking history, they are lucky enough to discover a courtesan who can be billed as a “king’s favorite,” they appear to smack their lips exultantly. One is almost inclined to believe that dead-and-gone kings must have chosen “favorites” merely for the sake of to-day’s stage.
As soon as the playwright has excavated a courtesan, he begins to think of the best way of whitewashing her. For she must be offered up as more sinned against than sinning. ”

“ Miss Herron leaned back on the reins. Her thin cheeks flushed up, and her gray eyes were like coal fires. “Signal the creature to slow up.”
“I am, Cousin Agatha. I am waving as hard as I can.” She was standing now, meeting with a lithe motion of supple knees and slender hips each plunge of the hurrying carriage, one little hand on the back of the seat. And with the other, Lucy, who looked at cousin Agatha and then laughed—just a little—signaled gayly if vaguely to the driver of the coming car. This was a young man, whose hair—for he wore no hat—shone in the sun like crisp gold wire. ”

“ Miss Herron felt as she did the first time she descended in the express elevator of a high office building. She was conscious that her hat was tugging at its pins. She settled herself back deeper in the seat and braced her feet stiffly, only to bounce up as they ran over some stick.
“Oh!” she gasped. “Ahem!”
“Sit tight,” counseled Archie, suavely. “We’ll get there in time, all right, if nothing happens.”
“If anything breaks,” she remarked, “you can usually get somebody to tow the machine home.”
“People are very charitable. Yes, Miss Herron.” ”

“ You must know all I mean that to imply—to come back, my best beloved, to you—to order my life in accordance to your pleasure—to marry you the day I set foot in Harmouth—or to wait impatiently till you are pleased to give yourself to me. I trust your love too entirely to fear that you will needlessly prolong the time. You are too fair-minded to let mere conventions weigh with you as against my happiness. ”

“ She couldn’t help recalling an incident that had happened two years before, when she had seen herself in that same glass transformed into sudden prettiness by Polly’s skillful fingers, and how her pleasure in her appearance had been turned into humiliation by Simeon’s petty tyranny, when she asked him to pay for her hat. And then she was ashamed of her own thoughts—distressed that she had let the paltry reminiscence force itself into her mind; for great happiness should put us in charity with all. ”

“ Was there also any chance for him?—there Adair stopped short, smiling a thought grimly to see how all unconsciously, all femininely, Allys drooped to Billy’s upright, youthful strength.
Hilary likewise noted it—with a thumping heart that sent the color surging over his face. Habitually he held himself well in hand—it amazed and angered him to find himself thus swept beyond himself. To all of us come moments when instinct masters reason—the primal masculine instinct of possession told him he would win or lose his quicksilver sweetheart on the issue of this race. ”

“ Adair glanced at her, caught a hard breath, nipped it, then looked steadily down the course a minute.
Hilary smiled—a smile that got no further than the corners of his red lips—his eyes, indeed, gloomed the more for it—then turned upon Allys with: “Pick the winner for us, won’t you? You are so delightful feminine you know nothing of horses, therefore ought to bring us luck. Say, now, what shall we back?”
“It depends,” Allys said, twirling her parasol ever so lightly. “Do you want to lose? Or do you really care to win?” ”

“ During dinner I bore the whole burden of conversation—though burden I did not find it. Like most of the most reticent men, I am extremely talkative. Silence sets people to wondering and prying; he hides his secrets best who hides them at the bottom of a river of words. If my spirits are high, I often talk aloud to myself when there is no one convenient. ”

“ Do the striking thing in London, and do it well, is the rule for success at this time, and the energetic, quickly perceiving American woman loses not a week nor a day after her arrival in proving to us that she is a definite person indeed.
London society is made up of as many as ten different sets, all independent and powerful, each one in its own way, and the skill of the woman from New York or Chicago is displayed by her promptness in deciding on just the set into which she prefers to enter. ”

“ The house was the most attractive in the town, and stood in the midst of well-kept grounds with smooth lawns and conservatories, and Deena felt oppressed by so much prosperity. On the few occasions when Simeon had taken her there to lunch on Sunday—the only dissipation he allowed himself—-she had thought the butler supercilious, and the maid who came to help her off with her wraps, snippy. ”

“ Think of a mile of street, brilliant like a drawing room almost, and swarming with all kinds of men and women from all over the world, each seeking his or her particular amusement and finding it. Pleasure is the commodity on sale here, and one can obtain it at any of those glittering signs blazing out over the crush, or traffic in it with the venders of the pavement. ”