Courtney

“ She felt him trembling, and there was a sob in his voice as he answered: "But when your arms ache with emptiness, you can put them round Winchie. While I—Courtney, how can I touch another woman, when it's you—you—you—" And his groping hand met hers, clasped it. He bent his head, kissed her hand—the back, the palm, then the fingers one by one. And they softly touched his cheek. "Basil!" she sighed.
The faint wind agitated the clusters of locust blooms; their perfume descended in heavy voluptuous waves. He pressed his hands one against each of her cheeks. "Courtney," he murmured. ”

“ In delineating the character of Emma Courtney, I had not in view these fantastic models: I meant to represent her, as a human being, loving virtue while enslaved by passion, liable to the mistakes and weaknesses of our fragile nature.—Let those readers, who feel inclined to judge with severity the extravagance and eccentricity of her conduct, look into their own hearts; and should they there find no record, traced by an accusing spirit, to soften the asperity of their censures—yet, let them bear in mind, that the errors of my heroine were the offspring of sensibility ”

“ And, in this case, I was sharp enough to see that though Miss Courtney was well dressed, she was not very well dressed. That is to say, though her clothes were of rich fashionable materials, they looked as if they had not been fitted by a first-class modiste, or put on by a lady's-maid who was up to her business.
Then she did not step into the carriage like a young lady. She grasped the side- handle and sprang in without touching my arm in the first place. ”

“ This Laura Courtney, with her pretty, piquant face, and pert, saucy manners, had first won his boyish heart. He had raved, and vowed, and implored at her feet, but she only laughed at him and his passion, and now she had no more power over his heart than if she never existed. Might it not be the same with those he had loved since? Was not his passion for Christie beginning to grow cold already? Would it not grow colder every day? And in the hot ardor of his love he had made this little obscure, uneducated, shy child, his wife. ”

“ Courtney's snow-white Albatross in which a couple with many important things to say could be free from prying observation, Johnny and Constance behaved like normal human beings who were profoundly happy. They mingled with the gaiety all the way out through the harbor to the open sea, and then they drifted unconsciously farther and farther to the edge of the hilarity, until they found themselves sitting in the very prow of the foredeck with Mr. Courtney and his friend from the West. If they could not exchange important confidences they could at least sit very quietly, touching elbows. ”

“ I would go myself, only there is a crowd here, waiting to take their leave, and make their adieus. Mrs. Courtney, it's not possible—you do not hesitate. What earthly attraction can there be for you, in that dreary, little isle?"
"Oh, Mrs. Brantwell! it's not that; indeed, I shall be delighted to accept your kind offer; but, Mr. Courtney is sometimes so queer, and has such strange notions about intruding on people, that I do not know——"
"Intrude! Nonsense!" interrupted Mrs. Brantwell. "I'm sure there's nobody in this world, as fond of society as I am. ”

“ Courtney began at the laboratory solely that she and Basil might be together. Soon she had another reason—love of the work itself. Everything worth while, whether for achievement or for amusement, involves drudgery at the outset—tennis or bridge no less than a trade or an art. Although Courtney had done at school the worst part of the drudgery in acquiring chemistry, it was nearly a month before she began to enjoy. Then came the first haunting alluring glimpses of the elusive mystery which makes chemistry the most fascinating of the sciences ”

“ I shall grow hardened——"
"Oh, but you must not, Basil!" she cried in dismay. "We must not. That's our danger, and we must fight it.... Isn't it pitiful! If we were two coarse people, mere animals, merely the ordinary man and woman, why, we'd be happy and never give remorse a thought."
"If we suffer more, we enjoy more," said he, clasping her as if some power had tried to snatch her away. "When I feel ashamed, Courtney, all I have to do is to remember your hair, to feel again its soft splendor on my face, between my fingers—and I am delirious." ”

“ Thane?"
"Quite," agreed Courtney. "You get fed up with 'em."
"I remember once when I was in New York going six nights in succession, seeing all the best things on the boards at that time, and I give you my word," said Miss Grady, "they DID feed me up terribly."
"I know just what you mean, Miss Grady," said Courtney, without cracking a smile. "One gets so bored with the best plays in town. What one really ought to do, you know, is to go to the worst ones."
"I've always wanted to see 'The Blue Bird,'" said Miss Miller wistfully. "It's by Maeterlinck, Mr. Nichols." ”

“ His blue eyes began to twinkle with the merry light of laughter.
"Mercy, no, Miss Farnham, I've never had a true friend in all my life! People value me solely for the length of my purse. Ask Miss Courtney if that is not true," and he smiled with sarcasm that puzzled Nita, but that also recalled to her mind Mrs. Courtney's displeasure if she should find her here with Dorian Mountcastle.
"I must go now. Mrs. Courtney did not wish me to [Pg 42] come in here at all," she faltered, turning toward the door. ”

“ If a wish could have removed Courtney painlessly to another world, I think I should have wished it. There was something exquisitely touching in Ethel's appearance and manner. She is as pure as any woman that ever lived; but she is a woman! and I felt that, for this day, I had a man's power over her. Occasionally I was conscious that her eyes were resting on my face; when I addressed her, her aspect softened and brightened; she fell into little moods of preoccupation from which she would emerge with a sigh ”

“ When Winchie went up, Courtney accompanied him. Toward ten she left the book she had been pretending to read and sat in the hammock on the balcony. The moon, huge and ruddy through an opening among the boughs, poured its flood of elfin light over lake and lawns and gardens. The soft shadows, the vague vistas, the overpowering perfume of honeysuckle and jasmine and rose combined to beguile her out of all sense of reality. "I've been dreaming—dreaming," she murmured. And what an incredible dream! No man—least of all Richard, the prejudiced, the domineering—would have acted so in real life. ”

“ But Courtney had lost interest in herself, just as she had lost interest in the house. She got herself together "any old way" in the mornings, took to breakfasting in bed. Sometimes she dressed for supper, and sometimes she came in working or walking clothes or in the négligée she had been wearing all day. Sometimes her blouse was buttoned in the back, oftener it was partly open. Wrinkled stockings had been her especial abhorrence, as she was proud of her slim tapering legs; now she habitually went the whole day without garters. She read much, and always novels. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIV. THE MISER SENDS FOR HIS BRIDE.
"What a nuisance!" muttered Mrs. Courtney, but she bathed Nita's face until she came to herself with a long, low sigh of deepest pain.
"I have been dreaming—oh, such a dreadful dream!" she shuddered.
"No, it was not a dream, Nita. I was telling you your guardian was alive, and you fainted—from excess of joy, I suppose," added the lady maliciously.
Nita sat up and pressed her small hand wearily to her brow. Despair made her brave.
"No, Mrs. Courtney, it was excess of sorrow," she answered frankly.
"Oh, you cruel, wicked girl!" ”

“ Her large brown eyes were of the kind that has been regarded as ideal for woman from the days of Homer singing the ox-eyed Juno, down to our own day when intelligence is trying to get a place among feminine virtues and the look of intelligence among feminine beauties. She had learned from Courtney—who knew—a great deal about dress—dress that all women talk, but only the rare exceptional woman knows. ”

“ When she reached the dining room her husband and Basil and Winchie were already at the supper table. As they rose, Basil did not lift his eyes; her husband gave her a glance of greeting. But Richard, the married man of five years, did not really see her face as it then was, but the face that had long been fixed in his mind as hers. To have seen her as she was, he would have had to be startled out of matrimonial myopia by some shock. There was no arresting change flaunted in Courtney's features; youth has no wrinkles and hollows in which the shadows of emotion can gather thick and linger. ”

“ And— Well, it doesn't do a man any good to be pretending friendship and smiling in another fellow's face, when all the time— I'll try, Courtney— But—it won't be exactly easy."
Her gaze burned for an instant on his, then dropped. "I should hope not!" murmured she.
They, absorbed in each other, moved so slowly along the road that Winchie, silent, motionless, sullen, upon the sled they were trailing as far as the rope permitted, was stiff with cold. But he did not murmur. By the time they reached the door of the farmhouse, Courtney and Basil had it all planned. ”

“ Just as Courtney was closing a long letter to his mother, the automobile drew up in front of the Tavern and Alix Crown's guests got out. There were "good-nights" and "sleep-tights" and then the car went purring down the dimly lighted road. He had no trouble in distinguishing Alix's clear, young voice, and thereupon added the following words of comfort to his faraway mother: "You will love her voice, mater dear. It's like music. So put away your prejudice and wish me luck. I've made a good start. The fact that she refused to look at me on the porch tonight is the best sign in the world. ”

“ Mrs. Courtney, in utter ignorance, inquired politely:
"Isn't it? Have you never been in New York before, Miss Cameron? Strangers always find it quite wonderful at the—"
"How are all the kiddies, Edith, and old Bill?" broke in her brother hastily.
He was terribly afraid that the girl beside him was preparing to shed tears of joy and relief. He could feel her searching in her jacket pocket for a handkerchief.
Mrs. Courtney was not only curious but apprehensive. She hadn't the faintest idea who Miss Cameron was, nor where her brother had picked her up. ”

“ His voice set to vibrating nerves she had thought would never again respond to him. She trembled, and her eyes sank. "Even if I could—you couldn't love me. You could forgive—could be generous and kind. But you couldn't love."
"But I do love you," he said. And she, looking at him in wonder, thought there had never shone eyes so near to being the very soul itself. "I began to love you when you sent Gallatin away and faced me alone and did not lie. I came back because— You were like the air to me, Courtney. One isn't conscious of the air unless he hasn't it, and can't breathe. ”

“ This was Courtney's idea. He suggested a wide cordon of machines and men as the only means of cutting off the fellow's escape.
"You're not likely to get anywhere, Foss, by keeping up a stern chase," he argued. "He has got too big a lead. Our only chance is to rush a lot of men out ahead of him in cars, and then work back through the woods."
A boy came up with Courtney's fedora hat, which he had picked up in the brush near the fence.
"There's a bullet hole through it, Mr. Thane," he cried in great excitement. ”

“ Courtney, I can take my maid; I need not deprive you of the pleasure," she said sadly. "But as for me, I do not care for music to-night. I would rather hear some godly words and prayers."
"It is time enough for piety when you are old and gray," the woman said cynically, and Nita gave her a strange, sad glance.
"What if I do not live to grow old—if I die in my early youth?" she queried.
Mrs. Courtney shrugged her shoulders without replying; but after Nita had gone out, she said significantly to Azalea. ”

“ After a while came in Vaughan's voice, "Courtney, what do you think of that?"
She stood in the window with an inquiring glance.
"I've been telling Gallatin you're going to introduce him round among the Wenona girls. And he says he has no use for women."
"I!" exclaimed Basil. "On the contrary, I think women—a woman—the most important element in a man's life."
Richard laughed. "Why, the man's in love!" cried he.
Courtney saw Gallatin wince as his wound was struck by this careless, jovial hand.
"Only a lover," proceeded Dick, "would exaggerate woman in that frenzied fashion. ”

“ Courtney could have been happy with another wife, or with no wife at all, perhaps; but, for Ethel and me, there could be no happiness save in each other. But were she free to-day, the separation that has already existed—long though it has been—would only serve to render our future union more blissful and complete. We have learned, by sad experience, the value of a love like ours, and we should know how to give it its fullest and widest expression. ”

“ How futile to relate and to rail. "As for Winchie, he's not enough."
"There will be others presently."
Courtney gave her mother a horrified look.
"You will do your duty as a wife, and the children will be your reward."
Courtney could not discuss this; discussion would be both useless and painful. "There may be some women who could be content with looking after a house and the wants of children," said she. "But I'm not one of them, and I never saw or heard of a worth-while woman who was. How am I to spend the time? I'm like you—I don't care for running about doing inane things. ”