Alicia

“ I danced into the room in which Pendleton had not slept and with crazy gestures made as if to sweep his memory out of the garish window. I had saved the children and safeguarded Alicia.
I felt I had played the man. And let no man say he has lived until he has fought for those he loves. Inevitably my mind dwelt upon Alicia. Who is that child? What were her beginnings? Did she come out of the sea and chaos of life only to vanish in some bitter poignant dream like that of last night? ”

“ Well, how's it to be, Alicia? Do we marry the baronet, and is poor Cousin Bob to be the best man at the wedding?"
"Sir Harry Towers is a noble-hearted young man," said Alicia, still trying to pass her cousin.
"But do we accept him—yes or no? Are we to be Lady Towers, with a superb estate in Hertfordshire, summer quarters for our hunters, and a drag with outriders to drive us across to papa's place in Essex? Is it to be so, Alicia, or not?"
"What is that to you, Mr. Robert Audley?" cried Alicia, passionately. "What do you care what becomes of me, or whom I marry? ”

“ CRASSUS.
"Soft, and stung softly, fairer for a fleck."
ALICIA.
O marvellous nation!
Vanity, dullness, slobber, and quotation!
CRASSUS.
Why do you love me if you scorn me so?
ALICIA.
Why, did I say I loved you? I say no.
CRASSUS.
Why do you make love?
ALICIA.
To beguile the hour;
To crown my rose-wreath with a greener flower'
To do my master's bidding, that's to give
Life to yourself, who only think you live.
But listen! Have you seen the nine waves roll
Monotonous upon the shoal,
Rising and falling like a maiden asleep ”

“ But Lady Alicia, when she arrived with Dinky-Dunk 67 just before nightfall, didn’t impress me as very much of an invalid. She struck me more as a very vital and audacious woman, neither young nor old, with an odd quietness of manner to give a saber-edge to her audacity. I could hear her laughing, musically and not unpleasantly, at the mud-coated “democrat,” which on its return looked a good deal like a ’dobe hut mounted on four chariot wheels. But everything, for that matter, was covered with mud, horses and harness and robes and even the blanket in which Lady Alicia had wrapped herself. ”

“ The speech of Alicia, at the close of the fourth act of Jane Shore, puts the matter beyond doubt. In a scene of deep distress, the rhymes which finish the act, produce a certain gaiety and chearfulness, far from according with the tone of the passion.
Alicia. For ever? Oh! For ever!
Oh! who can bear to be a wretch for ever! ”

“ Alicia faces danger as she faces life, with the same dead calm with which the rock of Castellontano looks up to the sunrise, or down at nightfall into the blackness underneath!” He paused an instant—and then, with something like a sob, he caught his breath. “I pour out my heart to her—she wears an air of listening, but her soul is far away. If I ask her questions, she smiles vaguely or shakes her head. ”

“ I can't help it. If I could care more for Alicia I would—but I can't help it that I've been caught by another woman. I can't marry Alicia when I don't love her.”
“Wait, wait, George! Don't, for heaven's sake, let your imagination, or whatever it is, run away with you now. You did love Alicia—can't you remember how you talked to me about her? And this new f-fancy—good heavens, you don't think you're serious about Miss Morrison, do you?” ”

“ Every one made a rush in that direction. Alicia was free—released from the grasping hands which had held her as in a vice. She took advantage of the moment, and rushed to the door which opened on the stair without stopping to say salám. She would have forgotten to snatch up her umbrella had she not intuitively seized on it as a weapon of defence. Alicia rushed so hurriedly down the stair that she nearly fell in her haste. She could hear the bibis above quarrelling over the jewel which she had flung away, which all coveted, but only one could possess. ”

“ Laura, sweet and grave-faced like her mother, is never as hilarious as the rest of us often are. My nephew Randolph was also absent. He, I suppose, was dining at his eternal "frat house."
It occurred to me how happy we could be, just the three of us, Alicia, Jimmie and I—plus, of course, Griselda. Alicia is beautiful now with a tender coloring and movements of exuberant gayety that are like wine to the heart. When her face is animated and her eyes flashing with merriment, the house seems charged with the very elixir of delight. ”

“ And she was watching for George, who was painting an old brick church out by one of the gates. He was a little late today; Alicia looked at her watch again, and finding herself quite ready for luncheon, went down to the terrace. Ten minutes more passed—fifteen—twenty. Alicia paced the terrace from end to end, ceased to look at the view, ceased to think of the Duomo or of antique tragedies; and the upright line between her eyebrows, the first marked print of time on her charming face, deepened as always when she was uneasy, giving her, for all her new bloom, a careworn look. ”

“ Nixon recommend that Oliver should go abroad for the winter?" asked Alicia, after a pause. She was sitting on the arm of a chair, her slender feet hanging, and the combination of her blue linen dress with the fiery gold of her hair reminded Lady Lucy of the evening in the Eaton Square drawing-room, when she had first entertained the idea that Alicia and Oliver might marry. Oliver, standing erect in front of the fire looking down upon Alicia in her blue tulle--his young vigor and distinction--the carriage of his handsome head--was she never to see that sight again--never? ”

“ I can see nothing. Must I turn to the right or the left?” said the young lady, stretching out her hand to feel the brick wall.
“This way,” cried Kripá Dé in front; and Alicia could now dimly trace the steps before her. They were steep, narrow, and not in particularly good condition. Alicia had a vague consciousness of plenty of dust below and cobwebs above.
“How strange it is,” thought the lady, as she groped her upward way, “that people of high caste and easy means, living in a large, lofty house, should not care for comfort, cleanliness or light. ”

“ It is as water-drops spilt on the ground.” “These women have hearts, if one could but reach them,” thought Alicia, as she saw tears rise to the eyes of a bibi. “They feel that the world is fleeting and vain. Oh, when shall we persuade them to raise their eyes to another, whose joys will never pass away! ”

“ It was an ideal world, full of ideal beings.
Soon after tea the irresistible magnetism of Alicia's babies drew Alicia off the moor, and with her the champion player, Janet, Hilda and Edwin. Mrs. Rotherwas let them go with regret, adorably expressed. Harry would have liked to stay, but on the other hand he was delightfully ready to yield to Alicia. ”

“ Miss Alicia got up from the sofa and came trembling toward him as one approaches one risen from the dead, and he made a big stride toward her and took her in his arms, patting her shoulder in reproachful consolation. ”

“ Mackaye's decorated drawing-room with half an hour for Alicia alone.
She was waiting for him, looking very sweet and young in a dress of soft blue. Alicia, pathetically enough, tried to recapture for him as much as possible of her first bloom; she made her dress definitely more youthful, tamed her regal head to something almost girlish, coiling her hair loose and low; and her manner to her lover corresponded in softness and submissiveness. And, alas! she did the wrong thing. George preferred her infinitely when she was most the woman. ”

“ Wycherly interrupted. "My dear Lady Alicia, you know you would."
"You are a ridiculous and obstinate man," said Lady Alicia; "much learning hath made you mad, and you know nothing whatever about women." ”

“ The whole group had a timid, alarmed look which half piqued and half pleased Alicia. She rather liked the sensation of her own imposing appearance which struck awe, and yet was annoyed that any one should be afraid of her. She had no doubt what to do; she went forward into the region of the firelight and held out a hand. “You don’t remember me,” she said, “or perhaps it is only that you don’t see me. I am Alicia Penton. May I sit down here a little till my cousin comes in?” ”

“ In a moment, therefore, Merriam found himself escorting Alicia down a sort of central aisle among the tables of the Peacock Cabaret, behind an excessively urbane head waiter, conscious that the rest of his guests were making a more or less imposing procession after them, and intensely conscious of suspended conversation throughout the great restaurant and of countless curious eyes staring across rosebuds and water bottles at himself.
"Say something to me," whispered Alicia. "You mustn't look self-conscious." ”

“ I certainly would deny that premise, so—we are cataloguing the library.
"Here is 'The Anatomy of Melancholy' by Burton," announces Alicia, taking down a volume.
"Small quarto, printed at Oxford, 1621," I finish for her.
"Yes," she breathes, marveling wide-eyed. "How can you remember such things, Uncle Ranny?" for so I have asked her to call me.
"How can I remember?" I ask in surprise. "How can I remember that you are Alicia Palmer, close to the towering age of fifteen, or that Jimmie Pendleton is five?"
"But we—are people," avers Alicia, "and we are—yours." ”

“ Alicia, thoroughly disgusted at the woman’s mean covetousness, shook her head and rose from the charpai on which she had been seated.
“Give the charm back!” cried Darobti, becoming suddenly aware that whilst she was quarrelling with Jai Dé the cause of the dispute might be carried away.
“Give the charm back!” echoed more than one voice.
Alicia grasped the locket more tightly. It was the property of her cousin, not theirs; she would never give it up except to its rightful owner. A cry for help from above burst from the Englishwoman’s heart as she made one step forward. ”

“ I can go by myself,” said Alicia. She did not choose to set Robin smiling again at any weakness of hers.
When once in her doli, Alicia repented of the passing peevishness into which she feared that she had been betrayed. “It is a wrong, a mean thing,” thought the young wife, “to feel cross because others take small worries more patiently than I do. Robin is right: it is better to laugh than to cry over tiny troubles. A poor missionary I must be, indeed, if my fortitude cannot stand a hot room or the stinging of a musquito. ”

“ Alicia knew she was clever and as she stood admiring herself in front of a full length mirror while awaiting the arrival of her guests she congratulated herself that she had made a success of her life. She had won those things which most women hold dear—wealth and social position. She had married a man she did not love, it was true, but other women had done that before her. If she had not brought her husband love she at least was not a wife he need be ashamed of. ”

“ If they could have spoken, those noble women, what would they have said to this daughter of a felon?
She paused for a few minutes to look up at her favorite, Lady Alicia, and then she came up to him and stood before him in an the grace of her delicate loveliness, in all the pride of her dainty beauty. She was looking at the gorgeous Titian near him.
"Norman," she said, "the sun has turned those rubies into drops of blood--- they looked almost terrible on the white throat. What a strange picture! What a tragical face!" ”

“ Driscoll who spoke. Alicia had shrunk back, almost to where a little figure was cowering with wide eyes fixed in something like terror on the aroused father's face.
"Then hear me," murmured the girl, entrapped and suddenly desperate. "I wore Alicia's slippers and I took the jewels, because it was time that an end should come to your mutual dissimulation. The love I once felt for her she has herself deliberately killed. I had a lover—she took him. I had faith in life, in honour, and in friendship. She destroyed all. A thief— she has dared to aspire to him! ”

“ There is the uncomfortable sensation of being like a drone in the hive. The remedy is study of the language; but Alicia felt too unsettled and impatient to sit down to grammar, and struggle with strange idioms and incomprehensible combinations of verbs. She sat fanning herself, glancing up at the clock every two minutes, and wishing for Harold’s return. The striking of that clock—for Robin had succeeded in setting it going—was the first thing to rouse Alicia from her dreamy, indolent mood. ”

“ The Hindus looked surprised at the question, which betrayed such ignorance of what they thought that every one knew or ought to know.
“Premi is a widow: of course she fasts every fortnight,” said Chand Kor; and so, as if tired with conversation on so insignificant a subject, she asked Alicia to sing.
Alicia was in no mood for singing; she rose and made her excuses as well as she could for not lingering longer in the zenana. “The sun is hot; my head pains me,” she said, in reply to the women’s expostulations. ”

“ How we dramatize ourselves, even the least imaginative amongst us! And all the time I feel as though great gouts of blood were dripping, dripping from my heart in nameless anguish.
Alicia, that divine child, is watching me unobtrusively though closely, whenever she can. She surrounds me with comforts and attentions. But like some sick owl, I prefer to brood alone.
The somewhat isolated position of my châlet on the rock and the lack of a wife in the household has saved me from making intimate acquaintances among my Crestlands neighbors. ”