United States or Kazakhstan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Nobody clings more frantically to illusions than your unbaked cynic; Louis, you're not nearly such a devil of a fellow as you imagine you are." Malcourt smiled easily and looked out over the waves. "Cynicism is old-fashioned," he said; "dogma is up to date. Credo! I believe in a personal devil, virtuous maidens in bowers, and rosewood furniture. As for illusions I cherish as many as you do!"
Malcourt aroused her and sent her off to bed. Then she roamed through the rooms, striving to occupy her mind with the negative details of the furnishing; but it was all drearily harmless, unaccented anywhere by personal taste, merely the unmeaning harmony executed by a famous New York decorator, at Portlaw's request a faultless monotony from garret to basement.
Vicious with irritation, Malcourt laid his hand on the girl's arm: "Take it from me, Dolly, that's the sort of citizen who'll sneak around to call on your sort Saturday evenings." She flushed painfully, but said nothing. "As for me," added Malcourt, "I don't think I've quite finished with this nice young man."
You don't care. I do. My curiosity is piqued. She becomes to me an abstract question which scientific experiment alone can elucidate " Hamil, leaning on the footboard of the bed, laughed and straightened up. "All right, Malcourt, if you think it worth while " "What pursuit, if you please, is worthier than logical and scientific investigations?"
Their black chair-boy lay asleep under a thicket of Spanish bayonet. "Arise, O Ethiope, and make ready unto us a chariot!" said Malcourt pleasantly; and he guided Virginia into her seat while the fat darky climbed up behind, rubbing slumber from his rolling and enormous eyes. Half-way through the labyrinth they met Miss Palliser and Wayward.
Now he halted, dark eyes roving about the room. They fell and lingered on a card-table where some empty glasses decorated the green baize top. "Bridge?" he queried. "Unfortunately," growled Portlaw. "Who?" "Mrs. Malcourt and I versus your ah talented family." "Mrs. Malcourt doesn't gamble." "Tressilvain and I did." "Were you badly stung, dear friend?" Portlaw muttered.
Portlaw was perhaps the sounder player, Malcourt certainly the more brilliant; and now, for the first time since the advent of the Tressilvains, the cards Portlaw held were good ones. "What a nasty thing to do!" said Lady Tressilvain sharply, as her brother's finesse went through, and with it another rubber. "It was horrid, wasn't it, Helen?
However, Portlaw was able to enlighten her if he cared to. Again and again Hamil, wandering in circles, looked across the wilderness of women's hats at Shiela Cardross, but a dozen men surrounded her, and among them he noticed the graceful figure of Malcourt directly in front of her, blocking any signal he might have given. Somebody was saying something about Mrs. Ascott.
And one Sunday, having pondered long that afternoon over the last letter Malcourt had ever written him, he put on hat and overcoat and went to Greenlawn Cemetery a tedious journey through strange avenues and unknown suburbs, under a wet sky from which occasionally a flake or two of snow fell through the fine-spun drizzle.
"That little Cardross girl is playing the devil with the callow hereabout," Wayward said; "Malcourt, house-broken, runs to heel with the rest. And when I see her I feel like joining the pack. Only I was never broken, you know " "She is a real beauty," said Miss Palliser warmly; "I don't see why you don't enlist, James." "I may at that. Garry, are you also involved?"
Word Of The Day