Love and Lucy

II A DINNER PARTY 16 III IN THE DRAWING-ROOM 31 IV AFTER-TALK 41 V EROS STEPS IN 53 VI ...

ONSLOW SQUARE This is a romantic tale. So romantic is it that I shall be forced to pry into the coy recesses of the mind in order to exhibit a connected, reasonable affair, not on...

A DINNER PARTY This was not to be one of Macartney's grand full-dress dinner-parties, the sort where you might have two lords, and would be sure to have one with his lady; or a Ca...

IN THE DRAWING-ROOM After dinner, when the men came into the drawing-room, Francis Lingen went directly to Lucy and began to talk to her. Lancelot fidgeted for Urquhart who, howev...

AFTER-TALK Nevertheless the two men talked down to Knightsbridge together, and Lingen did most of the talking. He chose to expand upon Macartney, the nearest he dared get to the s...

EROS STEPS IN When she was told that Francis Lingen and Urquhart were coming on the nineteenth, not to dine, Lucy said, "Oh, what a bore!" and seeing the mild shock inflicted on t...

A LEAP OUTWARDS She arose, a disillusioned bride, with scarcely spirit enough to cling to hope, and with less taste for Urquhart's motor than she had ever had for any duller task-...

PATIENCE AND PSYCHE There are two ways of encountering an anti-climax, an heroic, an unheroic. Lucy did her best to be a heroine, but her temperament was against her. Her imaginat...

AGAIN The second time was in late February, at the Opera: the _Walkuere_, of all operas in the world, where passion of the suddenest is seen on its most radiant spring morning. Ja...

SUNDRY ROMANTIC EPISODES A little cloud of witness, assembled at will like seagulls out of the blue inane, would come about her in after years. That madly exhilarating rush to Wes...

AT A WORLD'S EDGE It was after that queer look, after her too conscious blush that she began to envisage the state of her affairs. She was going to Martley Thicket for Whitsuntide...

ANTEROS Macartney was no fool in his own world, where a perfectly clear idea of what you want to do combined with a nonchalant manner of "Take it or leave it" had always carried h...

MARTLEY THICKET (1) Urquhart was a man of explosive action and had great reserve of strength. He was moved by flashes of insight, and was capable of long-sustained flights of vehe...

MARTLEY THICKET (2) The day that succeeded was prelude to the night, sufficient to show Lucy her way into that spacious unknown. By her own desire she passed it quietly, and had l...

THE GREAT SCHEME The height of her esteem for Urquhart was the measure of her growing disrelish for James. It was hard to visit upon a man the sense that he was not what he had ne...

JAMES James, hardly knowing it, was bracing himself for a serious situation. He had a keen eye for a man, a feeling for style; in his judgment Urquhart was momentous, so much so t...

AMARI ALIQUID Lingen was exceedingly gratified by Lucy's letter. James had thought the invitation should come from her, and, as the subject-matter was distasteful to her, sooner t...

THE SHIVERING FIT They were to start on the 8th of August, and it was now the 5th. Packing had begun, and Crewdson, as usual, was troublesome. He had the habit of appearing before...

"I'm going," she said. "You have been very sweet to me. I don't deserve it, you know." He looked up at her, quizzing her through the detested glass. "You darling," he said calmly,...

THE HARDANGER That enchanted land of sea and rock, of mountains rooted in the water, and water which pierces the secret valleys of the mountains, worked its spell upon our travell...

THE MOON-SPELL Macartney fell easily into habits, and was slow to renounce them. Having got into the way of making love to his wife, he by no means abandoned it; at the same time,...

FAIR WARNING Vera Nugent, a brisk woman of the world, with a fondness for vivid clothing and a Spanish air which went oddly with it, took the trouble one fine day to tackle her br...

THE DEPARTURE But pout as she might, she could not prevail with James, whose vanity had been scratched. "My dear girl, I'd sooner perish," he said. "Give up a jolly walk because ...

CATASTROPHE They were up and away before the light, taking only one guide with them, a sinewy, dark man with a clubbed beard on his chin. If they had had two it had been better, a...

JAMES AND JIMMY Macartney found him lying very still; nothing, in fact, seemed to be alive but his eyes, which were wide open and missed nothing. "You're hurt, I'm afraid. Can yo...

URQUHART'S APOLOGY Macartney was right when he said to Lucy, in talking over the adventure, that Urquhart had no moral sense, though she had not then been convinced. But she was t...