Various

“ Old Gordon holds us both with a grip like iron, and we are both puppets in his hands. She knows it, and I know it. She is as resentful of pretended affection as she would be of love—from me. But come, let us forget the Lady Barbara while we may—after we have drunk a measure of wine to her safe conduct from Camberwell to The Jolly Grig. From here to London her safety will depend on our swords. To the Lady Barbara, I say, to her daffodil hair, to her violet eyes, to her poppy lips, to her lily cheeks! Is that lover-like enough? Eh, Clarence? And I’ll add, to the icicle that incloses her heart. ”

“ The Lady Barbara’s eyes were still on her rings. She did not lift them to the man who stood so near her.
“Profit us!” he cried. “It would give you to me. It would permit you to marry me—if Lord Farquhart were out of the way. What else stands between us?”
“No,” she murmured, in a low, faint voice, her eyes still on the jewels in her hands. “’Tis not my Lord Farquhart stands between us, but your poverty and my father’s will. How can we marry when you have nothing, when I would have less than nothing if I defied my father? No, I intend to marry Lord Farquhart, whatever he may be.” ”

“ You—you really do love Mistress Judith, for herself? Really love her as a lover ought to love?”
“You’re over curious, my lad,” growled Lindley. “And yet ’tis my own fault, I suppose. I’ve given you my confidence.”
“But how know you that you love Mistress Judith?” persisted the boy.
“I love her—I love her because I’ve loved her always,” answered Lindley, passionately. “I loved her when I was ten, when she was six, when her golden head was no higher than my heart.” ”

“ I am he in dread of whom all London shivers, and it was to tell you that—that I stopped you, Barbara. To tell you and to test, if not your love, at least your good intentions as my wife. The world tells me that I cannot win your love, that it has been given irretrievably to another. But your fidelity I must prove before you wear my name. I am placing my life, my safety, my honor, in the sweet jeopardy of your hands. My life is forfeit, as you know. My life is henceforth in your hands.” She was shrinking away from him, but he held her fast. “My friends—your lover—await us at The Jolly Grig. ”

“ No token of love permitted by Venus has been the recipient of half the secret kisses the miniature may boast; none has so frequently been washed in tears. Almost, in fact, the tiny bit of color set in bijou jewels might be hidden by a single pressure of the lips, and one tear would be to it a bath of beauty. Indeed, its very name reveals it as the love token, for it comes to us from a certain word of French having in English the most velvet sounding and most endearing meaning in our somewhat limited language of passion. ”

“ And the business man, who should know better, too often enters the share market as if he were sitting in an open poker party, among sharpers and pickpockets, and recklessly surrenders himself to every temptation of this devil-may-care atmosphere, while he “plays the game.”
It is this combination of the gambler, the sporting man, the fast broker, the frivolous and ignorant trader and the speculative public, all possessed with the mad passions of gain and fear, and all struggling more or less grimly in the maelstrom which boils about the Stock Exchange, that constitutes the Wall Street spirit. ”

“ Johan, the player’s boy, had said that Mistress Judith was no beauty; but no one in all England would have agreed with that verdict had they seen her lightly poised on the threshold of the old inn, the gray plumes of her high crowned riding hat nodding somewhat familiarly to the motes in the sunshine. Her gray velvet riding skirt was lifted high enough to reveal her dainty riding boots; her hair, bright and burnished as a fox’s coat, fell in curls about her shoulders, and mischief gleamed from her tawny eyes, even as mischief parted her red lips over teeth as white as pearl. ”

“ The only hope lay in Lord Grimsby, the old man who had been convinced that the highwayman was in league with the devil, if he was not the devil himself; the old man whose only son had vowed to take to the road if the Black Highwayman met his fate at his father’s hands. But the hopes that were based on the demon-inspired terror, and the paternal love of Lord Grimsby, seemed faint, indeed, to Lindley as he rode toward London that night. ”

“ Suddenly the lad spoke.
“If you are cousin to Master James Ogilvie, as you say, why you are, then, cousin, too, to my Mistress Judith. You have seen her lately? Possibly she has confessed her plans, her ambitions, to you!”
“Nay, I’ve not seen the girl since we were children,” admitted Lindley, almost against his will.
“Well, she has—why, she has grown up since then. You would care to hear what she is like? I see her constantly, you know. Her face is as familiar as my own—almost. She’s over tall for a woman and over slight, to my way of thinking. ”

“ Despite this up-to-dateness, this true good fellowship, or perhaps because of it, many women still living there are that have known the anguish of a love token that should have been destroyed in the long ago—in the long ago when the heartbreak had come—and gone, as they thought. There have been women of supreme beauty and of brainy splendor, dressed to descend where the words were to be spoken, “Until death do you part”—who at that last moment of freedom have seized with a curse and angrily torn into shreds the cherished souvenir of a love of—oh, when was it? ”

“ In a lover’s eyes the merest trifle is the most cherished token of love. Her carte des dances, for instance—for has not that dainty program and its tiny pencil been suspended by its silken cord from her soft, white arm? Or—but certainly this is no trifle—a satin slipper, absurdly small and with adorable curves.
Above all others, however, the miniature is the typical token of love. There lives no woman whose breath comes more quickly at the sound of some man’s voice, or whose fingers tremble with happiness as they open his longed-for letters ”

“ The night was so far advanced that the moon was now directly overhead, and it was not very long before Lindley saw, not a hundred yards ahead of him, a white horse, ridden negligently by a somewhat slovenly lad—hooded, cloaked and doubled up in the saddle, as though riding were a newly acquired accomplishment. The road was lonely enough to instill an eerie feeling in the stoutest heart, and yet the lad seemed quite unmoved when Lindley, after one or two vocal appeals, laid a heavy hand on his horse’s bridle. ”

“ Lord Farquhart’ll tire of the game. What has he ever pursued for any length of time? And he’s been at this for six months or more. Nay, we can stop him, if we will. Is he not absolutely in our power?”
For a lady to win a lover to her way of thinking is easy, even though her way be diametrically opposed to his. Love blinds the eyes and dulls the ears; it lulls the conscience to all save its words. And Ashley yielded slowly, with little grace at first, wholly and absolutely at last, accepting his reward from the Lady Barbara’s pomegranate lips. ”

“ James Thornton lived and moved and had his being.
Down deep in her heart of hearts, Nancy Warren knew that she was far more like her mother than that very lovely and very conventional woman dreamed.
She was a luxury-loving soul—things that were mere accidents to other women were absolute necessities to her. With a longing that almost amounted to a passion, she craved jewels, good gowns, laces and all the other dear, delightful pomps and vanities of this world, which only a plethoric purse can procure. ”

“ I know full as well as he that his Mistress Sylvia in rags would be more to him than I would be if I were decked in the gayest gauds the town could offer.”
“Sylvia!” gasped her attendant dame.
“Ay, Sylvia, I said,” answered the Lady Barbara. “Don’t think that I’m deaf to London gossip, and don’t imagine that I’m the unsophisticated child my father thinks me, merely because I acquiesce in this brutal plan to marry me to a man I hate. I know how my Lord Farquhart entertains himself. Not that I’d have his love, either. I’d hate him offering love more than I hate him denying it.” ”

“ Mistress Benton’s shrieks were filling the air. The maids were squealing and praying Heaven to save them. Drennins and the shamed coach boys were cursing roundly.
“Thieves! Murder! Robbery!” screamed Mistress Benton. “We are killed!”
Even the Lady Barbara’s white hand could not quell the tumult, and, all the time, her frightened eyes rested tremulously everywhere save on Lord Farquhart’s face.
“Here, here, not a hundred paces from the inn,” screamed Mistress Benton. “He robbed us. He stole our all. Oh, just Heaven! We are all murdered.” ”

“ It is only for short intervals that the customers in broking offices can be busy. At other times they must lounge, and smoke; and chat, and read, and watch the board. A good-sized concern may easily have two hundred running accounts. Can you imagine a livelier, more entertaining place of gossip? You can have stocks, horses, commerce, law, medicine, small talk, art, science, the theater and religion in fifteen minute causeries, every day if you like. You have the milieu of every club in New York and the Waldorf café massed in one elegant composition in more than one broker’s parlor. ”

“ To his prejudiced eyes, the Lady Barbara, cold and colorless in the gloom of Gordon’s Court, had seemed quite lacking in all charm. But when he had sauntered from her presence to that of Sylvia on the afternoon when the jest of the highway robbery had been discussed, he found that his curiosity, nay, his interest, had been aroused by the Lady Barbara. He found that his unsophisticated cousin was not altogether lacking in color and spirit, and Sylvia, for the first time, seemed somewhat over blown, somewhat over full of vulgar life and gayety. ”

“ Some suggested that she might even be the highwayman himself. Lord Grimsby was trying to recall if ever he had heard of the devil guising himself as a young red-headed girl, covering himself, from horned head to cloven hoof, in azure velvet. Lord Farquhart still sat quite unmoved, seemingly as indifferent as ever to the world, apparently unmindful of his champion. Ashley’s face was black with rage, and he stood all alone in the midst of the crowd. Lady Barbara had flung aside her mask; her loosened cloak and its hood had fallen from her, but her white face was hidden behind her white hands. ”

“ I’ve tried to get along without you, and I just simply can’t!”
“Nance, you’re an angel!” cried Phil, rapturously. He leaned across the table, with a fine disregard of appearances, and kissed Nancy’s hands. But nobody noticed it at all—except the waiter at a respectful distance, secretly jubilant in the expectation of an unusually large tip, and he didn’t count. That is the beauty of those out-of-the-way Bohemian restaurants—people are so absorbed in their own love-making that they never have time to watch anyone else’s. ”

“ The Lady Barbara had drawn back from the ardor in her escort’s voice. “What means this silly masquerade? What words would you speak to me here? In this fashion?”
“’Tis but a lover’s prank, as you said,” he answered, lightly. Then, singing softly Lord Farquhart’s song to Sylvia, he swung her lightly from him, and bowed low before her as though she were his partner in a dance.
Hearts that beat with love so true! ”