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Updated: May 15, 2025
"I see the point of your criticism, and it's true, as far as it goes." "Oh, go on " Jaffery interrupted. "But " I continued. "You'd rather not see him again?" "No," roared Jaffery. "I'm talking to Hilary, not you," said Liosha. She turned to me. "You and Barbara would like me to take him away right now?"
Liosha stood glowing on the hilltop and panting a little after the quick ascent. A little curly strand on her forehead played charmingly in the wind which blew her skirts close around her in fine modelling. I thought of the Winged Victory. "I'm not a bit tired," she said.
And he wrote it all with the air of the impresario vaunting the qualities of his prima donna, nay more with a fatuous air of proprietorship, as though he himself had created Liosha. Here is the beginning of another letter, addressed to us both: "A thousand thanks, dearest people, for what you tell me of Doria. If she just misses me a little bit, all may be well.
It was all very well for Doria and Barbara to be ever putting him in the wrong: they were daughters of a subtle civilisation; but here was Liosha, who had once asked him to beat her, doing the same woman was a more curious phenomenon than ever. "I'm sorry if my manners are not as they should be," said he with a touch of irony. "I'll try to mend 'em. Anyhow, it's awfully good of you to come."
Nobody had fainted or shed tears; it was over in a perfectly well-bred way. At lunch Susan, between Liosha and Jaffery, became the centre of attention and saved conversation from constraint. To Doria, who had lingered at Northlands, in order to lose no time in setting herself right with Jaffery, her own phrase the ordinary table small-talk would have been an ordeal.
No one could have helped falling captive to Susan. But, I admit, in the case of Liosha, who was an out-of-the-way, incalculable sort of creature it was a good sign. Perhaps, considering the short period during which I had her under close observation, it was the best sign. She had grievous faults. One evening, while I was dressing for dinner, Barbara burst into my dressing-room.
"Wasn't it true what you told me?" "Of course not," I interposed. "You were as free to marry in England as Mrs. Considine." She paid no attention to me. "Wasn't it true?" she repeated. Fendihook laughed in vulgar bluster. "You didn't take all that rot seriously, you silly cuckoo?" Liosha drew a step away from him and regarded him wonderingly.
Again she had run her tactful hand over Liosha's stockyard vocabulary, erasing words and expressions that might offend Queen's Gate and substituting others that might charm; and she had done it with a touch of humour not lost on Liosha, who had retained the sense of values in which no child born and bred in Chicago can be deficient.
They had been betrothed years before. The price her father demanded was high. Not only did he hold a notable position on his mountain, but he had travelled to the fabulous land of America and could read and write and could speak English and could handle a knife with peculiar dexterity. Again, Liosha was no ordinary Albanian maiden.
When this was all settled Jaffery proclaimed himself the most care-free fellow alive. His hitherto grumpy and resentful attitude towards Liosha changed. He established himself as fellow slave with her under the whip of Susan's tyranny. It did one good to see these two magnificent creatures sporting together for the child's, and incidentally their own, amusement.
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