United States or United Kingdom ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Why can't we be happy together?" "Ask yourself," she said, trying to extricate herself, and not succeeding. "I don't like the people here, and they don't like me. But as you seem to enjoy flirting with Mrs. Fairmile, there's one person satisfied." Roger laughed not agreeably. "I shall soon think, Daphne, that somebody's 'put a spell on you, as my old nurse used to say.
Fairmile listened attentively, occasionally throwing in a word of criticism or comment, in the softest, gentlest voice. But somehow, whenever she spoke, Daphne felt vaguely irritated. She was generally put slightly in the wrong by her visitor, and Mrs. Fairmile's extraordinary knowledge of Heston Park, and of everything connected with it, was so odd and disconcerting.
The Duchess shook hers, and then they both began to talk of an engagement announced that morning in the Times. Mrs. Fairmile was soon riding alone, without a groom she was an excellent horse-woman, and she never gave any unnecessary trouble to her friends' servants through country lanes chequered with pale sun. As for the Duchess's attack upon her, Chloe smarted.
His mother, looking on, said to herself that he was angry and with good reason. But Mrs. Fairmile still smiled. "Ah! the Lelys!" she cried, raising her hand slightly toward the row of portraits on the wall. "The dear impossible things! Are you still discussing them as we used to do?" Daphne started. "You know this house, then?" The smile broadened into a laugh of amusement, as Mrs.
Fairmile turned to Roger's mother. "Don't I, dear Lady Barnes don't I know this house?" Lady Barnes seemed to straighten in her chair. "Well, you were here often enough to know it," she said abruptly. "Daphne, Mrs. Fairmile is a distant cousin of ours." "Distant, but quite enough to swear by!" said the visitor, gaily. "Yes, Mrs. Barnes, I knew this house very well in old days.
Instead of a casual ride, involving a meeting with a few old acquaintances, as he had represented to her, he had been engaged that day in an assignation with Mrs. Fairmile, arranged beforehand, and carefully concealed from his wife. Miss Farmer had seen them coming out of a wood together hand in hand!
He would have another determined hunt for that letter; he would also find and destroy his own letters to Chloe those she had returned to him which must certainly never fall into Daphne's hands; and then he would go away to London or the North, to some place whence he could write both to Chloe Fairmile and to his wife.
"Then there was some local scandal on the subject of Barnes and Mrs. Fairmile?" "Possibly. Scandal pour rire! Not a soul believed that there was anything more in it than mischief on the woman's side, and a kind of incapacity for dealing with a woman as she deserved, on the man's. Mrs. Fairmile has been an intrigante from her cradle. Barnes was at one time deeply in love with her.
They found the old Duchess, Mrs. Fairmile, and Dr. Lelius, alone.
Shall we have him in?" "By all means! The last time he was here he offered you four thousand pounds for the blue Nattier," said Chloe, with a smile, pointing to the picture. The Duchess gave orders; and an elderly man, with long black hair, swarthy complexion, fine eyes, and a peaked forehead, was admitted, and greeted by her, Mrs. Fairmile, and Dr. Lelius as an old acquaintance.
Word Of The Day