Lennard

“ One of those two is Sir Edmund; and he has it not: the other is Lady Clavering."
"But surely you cannot suspect her!" exclaimed Lennard. "You cannot suspect Lady Clavering!"
"To say that I suspect her would perhaps be too strong a word, Lennard. If my doubts rest upon her at all, it is because [143] she is the only person who could have an interest in getting possession of the will; and she is the only stranger, as far as I can recollect, who has been alone in this room sufficiently long to take it from the safe."
Lennard was incredulous. "But she had not the key of the safe. ”

“ Eleanor would have been quite alarmed by this speech, but for the tone of enjoyment with which Mrs. Lennard gave utterance to it. She had pushed aside her frame and huddled her brushes together upon the buhl table—there was nothing but buhl and ormolu, and velvet-pile and ebony, at the Hotel du Palais, and an honest mahogany chair, a scrap of Kidderminster carpet, or a dimity curtain, would have been a relief to the overstrained intellect—and she sat with her hands clasped upon the edge of the table, and her light blue eyes fixed in a tragic rapture. ”

“ Brightman's bunch until within a few days—and shook it before him.
[144]
"What mystery has come over the house, about keys, and locks, and things disappearing?" Lennard murmured, as a man bewildered.
"Lennard, it is the question I am asking myself."
"She could never have gone in there and passed him; and stood there while she got the key. A young and beautiful woman like Lady Clavering! Sir, it would be unnatural."
"No more unnatural for beauty than for ugliness, Lennard. Unnatural for most women, though, whether pretty or plain." ”

“ Is he a very great man, this Mr Parmenter? It seems to me to be something like going to dine with a duke."
"My dear Mrs O'Connor," laughed Lennard, "I can assure you that you will find this master of millions one of Nature's own gentlemen. Although he can make men rich or poor by a stroke of his pen, and, with a few others like him, wield such power as was never in the hands of kings, you wouldn't know him from a plain English country gentleman if it wasn't for his American accent, and there's not very much of that."
"And his daughter, Miss Auriole, what's she like?" said Norah. ”

“ Sir Edmund Clavering is coming up; I conclude it is for something special; and I may have instructions to give for Monday morning."
"Very well," replied Lennard. "I will come."
He went out as he spoke; a spare, gentlemanly man, with a fair complexion and thin, careworn face. Edgar Lennard was a man [57] of few words, but attentive and always at his post, a most efficient superintendent of the office and of the clerks in general.
He left and Mr. Brightman rose, saying he would go and get some dinner at the Rainbow. ”

“ It is on a matter of life and death."
"Where do you come from?" asked Watts, with habitual caution.
"I come from Mr. Lennard. Oh, pray do not waste time!"
"All right, my darling; it is not from your mother," I whispered to Annabel, as I ran down.
A young woman stood at the foot of the stairs; I was at a loss to guess her condition in life. She had the face and manner of a lady, but her dress was poor and shabby.
"I have come from my father, sir—Mr. Lennard," she said in a low tone, blushing very much. "He is dangerously ill: we fear he is dying, and so does he. ”

“ Lennard could not refrain from referring his cause to his friend. Was
ever anything so unreasonable, says he, as this woman? What shall I do
with her? I doat on her to distraction; nor have I any cause to complain
of, more than this obstinacy in her temper; whatever she asserts, she
will maintain against all the reason and conviction in the world. Pray
give me your advice.--First, says Paul, I will give my opinion, which
is, flatly, that you are in the wrong; for, supposing she is in the
wrong, was the subject of your contention any ways material? ”

“ We'll come after and get introduced."
"Ah, Mr Lennard," said Lord Kitchener, holding out his hand. "You're quite a man of surprises. The last time I went with you to see the Kaiser in a motor-car, and now you come to visit His Royal Highness in an airship. Your Royal Highness," he continued, turning to the Duke, "this is Mr Lennard, the finder of this comet which is going to wipe us all out unless he wipes it out with his big gun, and these will be the other gentlemen, I presume, whom His Majesty has wired about." ”

“ After dinner Lennard excused himself, saying that he wanted to make a few more calculations; and then he got outside and lit his pipe, and walked up the winding path towards the observatory.
"What am I to do?" he said between his teeth. "It's a ghastly position for a man to be placed in. Fancy—just a poor, ordinary, human being like myself having the power of losing or saving the world in his hands! And then, of course, there's a woman in the question—the Eternal Feminine—even in such a colossal problem as this! ”

“ We hastened up with one accord, and found that Lady Clavering——"
"Well?" I impatiently cried, looking at Lennard.
"Had gone into the next room, and seen Mr. Brightman," he whispered. "It took three of us to hold her, and it ended with hysterics. Leah came flying from the kitchen, took off her bonnet, and brought some water."
[129]
I was sorry to hear it; sorry that any woman should have been exposed to so unpleasant a fright. "But it was her own fault," I said to Lennard. "How could she think of entering a room of which the door was locked?" ”

“ My name is Gilbert Lennard."
"Then, I take it, you're the man who swam that race with my brother John, in Clifden Bay, when Miss Parmenter was thrown out of her skiff. But he's no brother of mine now. He's sold himself to the Germans, and," he continued, suddenly lowering his voice almost to a whisper, "come up to my room, we'll have the bottle there, and Mr Lennard will join us. Yes, waiter, you can take it up to No. ”

“ Lennard, going to his wife, asked her pardon, and told her his friend
had convinced him he had been in the wrong. She immediately began a vast
encomium on Paul, in which he seconded her, and both agreed he was the
worthiest and wisest man upon earth. When next they met, which was at
supper, though she had promised not to mention what her husband told
her, she could not forbear casting the kindest and most affectionate
looks on Paul, and asked him, with the sweetest voice, whether she
should help him to some potted woodcock? Potted partridge, my dear, you
mean, says the husband. ”

“ Lennard asked.
"No; but the Danforths were talking."
"The Danforths generally are talking," the old lady replied.
"Well, but I think they are right. It's time for Wayne to settle. A man should look after his own place and know his own people. And if he has a big house he wants a wife."
"When he wants her he can find her without the assistance of other people. The worst matches I've ever known were those made up by sisters and cousins and aunts," said Mrs. Lennard in her decided way. "Elsie, my dear, what are you looking at? That was only a cat that ran across the road. You are getting nervous. ”

“ Mrs. Lennard added, entreatingly, as she seated herself at her work in one of the long windows. “I shall get on splendidly,” she exclaimed, “if the Emperor doesn’t go for a drive; but if he does, I must leave off my work and look at him—he’s such a dear!”
Eleanor was very willing to make herself what the advertisements call “generally useful” to the lady who had engaged her. She was a very high-spirited girl, we know, quick to resent any insult, sensitive and proud ”

“ This evening he grew better; the pain almost subsided; but the doctor said that might not prove a favourable symptom. My father asked for the truth—whether he was dying, and the answer was that he might be. Then my father grew terribly uneasy in mind, and said he must see you if possible before he died—and sent me to ascertain, sir, whether you had returned home."
The cab drew up at a house in a side street, a little beyond Blackfriars Bridge. We entered, and Miss Lennard left me in the front sitting-room. The remnants of faded gentility were strangely mixed with bareness and poverty. ”

“ Mr Lennard had clearly seen the chasm which divides the Protestant Church of England from the Romish system and its counterpart, Ritualism, and, as an honest man, he was not to be drawn over. Again defeated, the vicar of Luton-cum-Crosham had to take his departure. He still, however, found dupes to subscribe sufficient funds for the establishment of his college, and a Lady Superior of high ritualistic proclivities to take charge of it, and masters who, provided they got their stipends, cared nothing about the object of the institution. ”

“ The millionaire, who had listened with an attention that even he had never given to any subject before, smoked in silence for a few moments after Lennard had finished, and then he said quietly:
"Well, I reckon that's about the biggest order that two or three human beings have ever been called upon to fill. ”

“ Hope is the last thing we part with in this world, you know, lad. But this dream-visit of my father has shown me the truth beyond all doubt; and now I have only to make my packet, as the French say, and wait for the signal to start."
We talked together a little longer, but my time was up. I left him for the night and apparently in the best of spirits.
Lennard was alone in his parlour when I got downstairs. I asked him whether he had heard of this fancy of Tom's about the dream.
"Yes," he answered. "He told me about it this evening, when I was sitting with him [201] after tea ”

“ M. Lenormand looked at her for a long time without speaking, as though he were trying to read what lay behind those innocent eyes.
He asked her no questions. After a minute, he simply said:
"That will do, thank you. Come, Gourel." He went out with the sergeant and, at once, as they followed the darkling paths of the garden, said: "That's the one!"
"Do you think so, chief? She looked so placid!"
"Much too placid. Another would have been astonished, would have wanted to know why I sent for her. Not this one! Nothing but the concentrated effort of a face that is determined to smile at all costs. ”

“ Lenore was now a young lady. I thought myself a man. As children, we could no longer live together—no longer dwell under the same roof. Lenore was too beautiful; and I was too much afflicted with poverty. Any further acquaintance between us might not contribute to my future happiness but the contrary.
I left the house with mingled feelings of pleasure and despair, pleased to find myself once more restored to the good opinion of Mrs Hyland—despairing of being able to resist the fascinations of her daughter’s beauty. ”

“ These logs, laid one upon another, were visible proof that so far he had stood the gaff! He had done killing work, yet he still lived to do more. The fear that his spirit would fly from his exhausted frame at the end of one of these bitter days could soon be discarded; seemingly he could toil from dawn to dark, eat his fill, and in a night's sleep build himself up for another day of toil. More and more of Lenore's work could be laid on his ever-strengthening shoulders.
The cabin itself was roomy and snug: here he could find seclusion from Doomsdorf and his imperturbable squaw. ”

“ It can be said for Lenore that she wasted no time with men who were not eligible, in every sense of the word. Lenore had her way to make in this world of trial and stress.
Long ago Ned had chosen her from among her girl friends as the most worthy of his courtship,—a girl who could rule over his house, who loved the life that he lived, whose personal appeal was the greatest. Best of all, she was the product of his own time: a modern girl in every sense of the word. The puritanism he deplored in his own parents was conspicuously absent in her. She smoked with the ease and satisfaction of a man ”

“ Then I went to Lenardo, the first in line, and said to the guard:
“Are any of you experienced in tying a man’s hands?”
A head-shake was the response of each.
“Then observe how this is done,” I said. And to Lenardo, “Turn your back and cross your wrists behind you.”
All the blood fled his face. He glanced about with a shamed, beseeching helplessness, his eyes wide with horror and his look an appeal for protection from the outrage. ”

“ Lendon, the truth is that I am devoted heart and soul to some one else."
"Some one else!" Lendon exclaimed, thrilling with doubt and dread.
"Yes; some one worthy of my devotion. I have been constantly in his company during the past weeks. I have studied his character in many phases. He has his faults, but he is greater than his faults; and I admire him in spite of them—nay, because of them. That is how one ought to love, is it not, Mr. Lendon?"
"Beatrice! it is not like you to play with a man's heart in this way." ”

“ The horror for me is that I hate what is German in me.... I will have to kill that. But you've helped me.... I know I'm American. I'll do my duty, whatever it is. I would have gone to war only a beast with my soul killed before I ever got there.... With no hope—no possibility of return!... But you love me!... Can't you see—how great the difference?"
Lenore understood and felt it in his happiness. "Yes, Kurt, I know.... Thank God, I've helped you.... I want you to go. I'll pray always. I believe you will come back to me.... Life could not be so utterly cruel..." ”