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We were on tenterhooks the whole time, and it made me shudder to see how Mr. Marriott caressed the knives. I could scarcely prevent myself screaming when he held one up, and, feeling the blade carefully with his finger, said: "I rather thought of doing this little trick to-night, if you would like it; it is very convincing and doesn't take long."
The little party closed in around their chief and together they marched up to the house. Chauvelin, on tenterhooks, walked quicker than the others. He was the first to reach the door. Unable to find the bell-pull in the dark, he knocked vigorously. The house appeared silent and wrapped in sleep.
Soames shook his head so far as that was possible. "Why do you keep me on tenterhooks like this, putting me off and off?" "Darling, it was very harmless." "Harmless! Much you know what's harmless and what isn't." Fleur dropped her arms. "Well, then, dear, suppose you tell me; and be quite frank about it." And she went over to the window-seat.
For there, from out the Creux had come a boat and another, and another, and another four boat-loads of them again! So they were coming, after all, and his hopes died sudden death. Well let them come and take him and have their will. He was not the first who had paid the price for what he had not done, and human nature must fall to pieces if hung too long on tenterhooks.
Barbara, on the tenterhooks of impatience, accompanied him outside when he departed, and walked down the path. "What have you learnt?" she eagerly asked. "Nothing satisfactory," was the reply of Mr. Carlyle. "And the man has left again." "Left?" uttered Barbara. Mr. Carlyle explained.
Yet Aunt Priscilla had a curious fondness for her, which she insisted to herself was very reprehensible, since Betty was such a feather-brained girl. "It is to be hoped the ship did get in to-day," Aunt Priscilla began presently. "If there's anything I hate, it's being on tenterhooks." "She was spoken this morning. There's always more or less delay with pilots and tides and what not," replied Mrs.
He used to pronounce historic words in such a solemn voice that it was impossible to hear them, and he used to try artfully to keep his hearer on tenterhooks at the thrilling moments. He would stop, pretend to choke, and noisily blow his nose; and his heart would leap when the child asked, in a voice choking with impatience: "And then, grandfather?"
They made no reference to what had happened, and as he did not speak of it again she tried to pretend that he had abandoned the project. But she lived on tenterhooks. There came a time when he could hold himself in no longer. He had to speak even if it broke his heart: he was suffering too much. The egoism of his sorrow mastered the idea of the suffering he would bring to her. He spoke.
These are the jewels of eloquence, and therefore the harder they are the more precious they must be. He'll take a scant piece of coarse sense and stretch it on the tenterhooks of half-a-score rhymes, until it crack that you may see through it and it rattle like a drumhead.
Still just then, being on tenterhooks, he desired the female's room more than her company so it came as a genuine relief when the keeper made her a rude sign to take herself off.
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