John Wharton

“ He felt, with a kind of horror, his own strong youth and the bounding blood in his veins. "Look here," he said suddenly, "I may have to go to Washington for a few days—soon; next week perhaps."
Her hand remained on the key of the lamp as she turned to him slowly. The heat from its flame had brought back a glow to her face, but it paled as she looked up.
"On business?" she asked, in a tone which implied that there could be no other conceivable reason, and that she had put the question automatically, as if merely to finish his own sentence. ”

“ He went up to the tray and poured himself out a tall glass of brandy and soda.
“The weather is turning queer—black as pitch. I hope the Swordsleys won’t walk into the lake—involuntary immersion, eh? He’d come out a Baptist, I suppose. What’d the Bishop do in such a case? There’s a problem for a lawyer, my boy!”
He clapped his hand on Wrayford’s thin shoulder and then walked over to his wife, who was gathering up her embroidery silks and dropping them into her work-bag. Stilling took her by the arms and swung her playfully about so that she faced the lamplight. ”

“ Williams was busy, and took Wharton into a reception-parlor. Wharton fancied, as he sat waiting on the edge of a chair, that he could hear men laughing in some distant room of the house. The iron rattle of a voice that sounded like Felt's invaded the recesses of Wharton's consciousness and hurt him like a sword twisting in his vitals. ”

“ I shall not return to Pianura."
She continued to stare at him, leaning against the chair from which de Crucis had risen.
"Your choice is made! Your choice is made!" she repeated. "And you have chosen--"
"You," he said simply. "Will you go to France with me, Fulvia? Will you be my wife and work with me at a distance for the cause that, in Italy, we may not serve together? I have never abandoned the aims your father taught me to strive for; they are dearer, more sacred to me than ever; but I cannot strive for them alone. ”

“ Clinch gave herself a kind of canine shake, as though to free her ample shoulders from any drop of the element she was supposed to have traversed.
"Oh, call them muddy rather than deep," she returned; "and you'll find, my dear, that women who've had any wading to do are rather shy of stirring up mud. It sticks--especially on white clothes."
Mrs. Fetherel lifted an undaunted brow. "I'm not afraid," she proclaimed; and at the same instant she dropped her tea-spoon with a clatter and shrank back into her seat. "There's the bell," she exclaimed, "and I know it's the Bishop!" ”

“ Turned this way, that way, as perdition beckoned,
I, wondering what the night would bring, half hoping:
If not, this once, a child's sleep in my garret,
At least enough to buy that two-pronged coral
The others covet 'gainst the evil eye,
Since, after all, one sees that I'm the youngest———
So, muttering my litany to hell
(The only prayer I knew that was not Latin) ,
Felt on my arm a touch as kind as yours,
And heard a voice as kind as yours say "Come."
I turned and went; and from that day I never
Looked on the face of any other man.
So much is known; so much effaced ”

“ William Wharton, who was killed in a duel, in 1689, calls himself 'fourth son to the Right Honourable Philip Lord Wharton of Wharton, in Westmoreland, [181] by Ann, Daughter to William Carr, of Fernihast, in Scotland, Esqr., one of the Groome (sic) of the Bedchamber to King James' ”

“ If there was anything else, I'd tell you so; but there ain't. Come to my age, a man knows the things that matter and the things that don't; that's about the only good turn life does us.”
His tone was so strong and resolute that it was like a supporting arm about her. She felt her resistance melting, her strength slipping away from her as he spoke.
“Don't cry, Charity,” he exclaimed in a shaken voice. She looked up, startled at his emotion, and their eyes met.
“See here,” he said gently, “old Dan's come a long distance, and we've got to let him take it easy the rest of the way....” ”

“ The discovery made the cup of his bliss overflow, and he went on gaily: "The worst of it is that I want to kiss you and I can't." As he spoke he took a swift glance about the conservatory, assured himself of their momentary privacy, and catching her to him laid a fugitive pressure on her lips. To counteract the audacity of this proceeding he led her to a bamboo sofa in a less secluded part of the conservatory, and sitting down beside her broke a lily-of-the-valley from her bouquet. She sat silent, and the world lay like a sunlit valley at their feet.
"Did you tell my cousin Ellen?" ”

“ The state exists for the people; if they do not need it, it has ceased to serve its purpose."
She clasped her hands in an ecstasy of wonder. "Oh, fool, madman--but it is not of the state I speak! It is you who are in danger--you--you--you--"
He raised his head with an impatient gesture.
"I?" he said. "I had thought you meant a graver peril."
She looked at him in silence. Her pride met his and thrilled with it; and for a moment the two were one.
"Odo!" she cried. She sank into a chair, and he went to her and took her hand.
"Such fears are worthy neither of us," he said gravely. ”

“ But what had originally sprung from the impulse to retain a hold over a woman, became in the end the instrument of a new and quite other situation. Wharton had no sooner entered the House of Commons than he felt himself strangely at home there. He had the instinct for debate, the instinct for management, together with a sensitive and contriving ambition. He found himself possessed for the moment of powers of nervous endurance that astonished him—a patience of boredom besides, a capacity for drudgery, and for making the best of dull men. ”

“ Their being afoot, and the style of the man's dress, showed that they were of the middle class; their demeanour, that they were father and daughter. The girl moved with a light forward flowing of her whole body that seemed the pledge of grace in every limb: of her face Odo had but a bright glimpse in the eclipse of her flapping hat-brim. She stood under his tree unheeded; but as they rose abreast of him the girl paused and dropped her companion's arm.
"Look! The cherry flowers!" she cried, and stretched her arms to a white gush of blossoms above the wall across the road. ”

“ For a moment he fancied she was crying; but the next she was on her feet and had swept round on him a face she must have turned away only to hide the first rush of her pleasure.
For a while they shone on each other without speaking; then she sprang to him and held out both hands.
"Is it true? Is it really true? Is it really going to happen to ME?"
He felt like answering: "You're the very creature to whom it was bound to happen" ”

“ Instantly he passed Paul over to his nurse, stammered out a word about being tired, and sprang up the long flights to his study. The pain in his head had stopped, but his hands trembled as he tore open the envelope. Within it was a second letter bearing a French stamp and addressed to himself. It looked like a business communication and had apparently been sent to Undine's hotel in Paris and forwarded to him by her hand. "Another bill!" he reflected grimly, as he threw it aside and felt in the outer envelope for her letter. ”

“ Whenever she stopped thinking about that for a moment she felt as she sometimes did after lying on the grass and staring up too long at the sky; her eyes were so full of light that everything about her was a blur.
Each time that Miss Hatchard, in the course of her periodical incursions into the work-room, dropped an allusion to her young cousin, the architect, the effect was the same on Charity. The hemlock garland she was wearing fell to her knees and she sat in a kind of trance. ”

“ Chapter XXVI The next phase in the unrolling vision was the episode of her return to New York. She had gone to the Malibran, to her parents--for it was a moment in her career when she clung passionately to the conformities, and when the fact of being able to say: "I'm here with my father and mother" was worth paying for even in the discomfort of that grim abode. Nevertheless, it was another thorn in her pride that her parents could not--for the meanest of material reasons--transfer themselves at her coming to one of the big Fifth Avenue hotels. ”

“ Manford stood between, his face a ruin. In the corner stood that other man, shrinking, motionless. Pauline's eyes. following her child's, travelled on to him.
"Arthur!" she gasped out, and felt Nona's feeble pressure on her arm.
"Don't . . . don't. . . It was an accident. Father—an accident! Father!"
The door of the room was wide now, and Powder stood there, unnaturally thin and gaunt in his improvised collarless garb, marshalling the gaping foot-men, with gardeners, chauffeurs and maids crowding the corridor behind them. It was really marvellous, how Pauline's system had worked. ”

“ There's an awfully jolly crowd there--and the motoring's ripping in Normandy. If you say so I'll take a villa there instead of going back to Newport. And I'll put the Sorceress in commission, and you can make up parties and run off whenever you like, to Scotland or Norway--" He hung above her. "Don't dine with Chelles to-night! Come with me, and we'll talk things over; and next week we'll run down to Trouville to choose the villa."
Undine's heart was beating fast, but she felt within her a strange lucid force of resistance. Because of that sense of security she left her hands in Van Degen's. ”

“ Then she glanced irresolutely along the street, and as she did so a gleam appeared through the spruces at Miss Hatchard's gate. Lucius Harney was there, then—he had not gone down to Hepburn with Mr. Miles, as she had at first imagined. But where had he taken his evening meal, and what had caused him to stay away from Mr. Royall's? The light was positive proof of his presence, for Miss Hatchard's servants were away on a holiday, and her farmer's wife came only in the mornings, to make the young man's bed and prepare his coffee. Beside that lamp he was doubtless sitting at this moment. ”

“ For they’re both at Verdun.”
One autumn afternoon he was late in getting back to the studio, where he knew she was waiting for him. He pushed the door open, and there, in the beaten-down attitude in which he had once before seen her, she lay across the table, her cap awry, her hands clutching her sewing, and George kneeling at her side. The young man’s arm was about her, his head pressed against her breast; and on the floor lay the letter, the fatal letter which was always, nowadays, the key to such scenes. ”

“ In the open taxi-cab he seemed to recover his sense of well-being, and leaned back, his hands on the knob of his stick, with the air of a man pleasantly aware of his privileges. "This Paris is a thundering good place," he repeated once or twice as they rolled on through the crush and glitter of the afternoon; and when they had descended at Undine's door, and he stood in her drawing-room, and looked out on the horse-chestnut trees rounding their green domes under the balcony, his satisfaction culminated in the comment: "I guess this lays out West End Avenue!" ”

“ You're too young to understand——"
"Oh, no, I ain't," said Charity harshly; and Miss Hatchard blushed to the roots of her blonde cap. But she must have felt a vague relief at having her explanation cut short, for she concluded, again invoking the daguerreotypes: "Of course I shall always do what I can for you; and in case... in case... you know you can always come to me...."
Lawyer Royall was waiting for Charity in the porch when she returned from this visit. He had shaved, and brushed his black coat, and looked a magnificent monument of a man; at such moments she really admired him. ”

“ Count Roberto had the heart of a poet, but he walked with a limp and his skin was sallow. Youth plucks the fruit for its color rather than its flavor; and first love does not serenade its mistress on a church-organ. In Italy girls are married as land is sold; if two estates adjoin two lives are united. As for the portionless girl, she is a knick-knack that goes to the highest bidder. Faustina was handed over to her purchaser as if she had been a picture for his gallery ”

“ His manner in Paris had been so different!
Suddenly he turned and took off the glasses, which sprang back into a fold of his clothing like retracted feelers.
"Yes." He stood and looked at her without seeing her. "Very well. I have brought down a gentleman."
"A gentleman--?"
"The greatest American collector--he buys only the best. He will not be long in Paris, and it was his only chance of coming down."
Undine drew herself up. "I don't understand--I never said the tapestries were for sale." ”

“ The world grew too clever, and leadership was more difficult every day.
Meanwhile Wharton found his progress through these stately rooms extremely pleasant. He was astonished at the multitude of people he knew, at the numbers of faces that smiled upon him. Presently, after half an hour of hard small talk, he found himself for a moment without an acquaintance, leaning against an archway between two rooms, and free to watch the throng. Self-love, "that froward presence, like a chattering child within us," was all alert and happy. ”

“ I suppose it's what New York is for." He sat down in the armchair facing hers, and stared at the fire.
"I wanted to see you to talk about plans—a rearrangement," he began. "It's so hard to find a quiet minute."
"Yes; but there's no hurry now. The Delavans don't dine till half-past eight."
"Oh, are we dining there?" He reached for a cigarette.
She couldn't help saying: "I'm sure you smoke too much, Dexter. The irritation produced by the paper—"
"Yes; I know. But what I wanted to say is: I should like you to ask Lita and the boy to Cedarledge while Jim and Wyant are at the island." ”