II
After her mother’s death, Olivia rented the dear old place, the home of her ancestors for nearly twenty-five years, filled with the priceless possessions purchased from the proceeds of the preposterously profitable porcine proclivities of her papa, but haunted by the family ghosts of Berkshire and Chester White. She fled to London to escape her heritage of shame.
There she met Alexis Triona, the famous author of Rushing Through Russia. With his clean-shaven face, broad forehead, gray eyes, humorous mouth, he looked the hero that he wasn’t. He had faked his book from a stolen diary which he always carried about with him so that, at the proper moment, he might be found out.
He was a chauffeur, the son of a laborer, therefore his diction was faultless. “Diction” is the word. He employed it in ordinary conversation unsparingly—diction and contradiction—for he was a wonderful liar. Lacking all the advantages of birth and education, he had, nevertheless, achieved a mendacity of majestic grandeur and ravishing art.