United States or Serbia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Mariana's voice gave way. She suddenly flushed with emotion; under emotion she always gave one the impression of being angry. "You are no doubt asking yourself, 'Why does this tiresome young lady tell me all this? just as you must have done when I spoke to you... about Mr. Markelov." She bent down, tore off a small mushroom, broke it to pieces, and threw it away.
These were the thoughts that whirled round, chasing one another and becoming entangled in Mariana's feverish brain. Pressing her lips closely together and folding her arms like a man, she sat down by the window at last and remained immovable, straight up in her chair, all alertness and intensity, ready to spring up at any moment.
Mariana's solitude in the moated grange was as nothing to hers. In granges, and such like rural retreats, people expect solitude; but Miss Mackenzie had gone to Littlebath to find companionship. Had she been utterly disappointed, and found none, that would have been bad; but she had found it and then lost it.
"I don't know why she ain't," said her friend, in an argumentative tone of the sort adopted to carry on brilliantly a conversation of which both participants know the familiar moves. "Mariana's a real pretty woman, prettier by far than she was when she's a girl. I know she's gettin' along. She was forty-three last April, but age ain't everything. Look at aunt Grinnell.
It is a well-known fact, though not very easy to understand, that Russians are the greatest liars on the face of the earth, yet there is nothing they respect more than truth, nothing they sympathise with more. And then Solomin, in Mariana's eyes, was surrounded by a particular halo, as a man who had been recommended by Vassily Nikolaevitch himself.
Mariana's position in the Sipiagin's house was a very difficult one. Her father, a brilliant man of Polish extraction, who had attained the rank of general, was discovered to have embezzled large state funds. He was tried and convicted, deprived of his rank, nobility, and exiled to Siberia.
A sudden, patent longing leaped to James Polder's countenance. Actually he stuttered with a surprised delight. Damn it, there was nothing for him, Howat, to do but stare like a helpless idiot. He ought to say something, second Mariana's impudent invitation, at once. She ignored him, gazing intently at the younger man.
His mind, striving to encompass the problem of Mariana's existence, failed to overcome the walls built about him by time, by habit. He gave it up. The louder pealing of the organ announced immediate developments.
And why was she, Mariana, so touched by her act? An unattractive woman interests herself in a young man... What is there extraordinary about it? And why should Mashurina assume that Mariana's attachment to Nejdanov is stronger than the feelings of duty? And did Mariana ask for such a sacrifice? And what could the letter have contained? A call for speedy action? Well, and what then? And Markelov?
Howat Penny recalled her callous expression, photographed in Egyptian dress at a period ball, her description of the hard riding and reckless parties of the transplanted English colonies in the south. Polder lifted the goblet to his lips, but set it back untasted. Howat looked away from Mariana's scornful interrogation, unable to reply.
Word Of The Day