From “Her Diplodocus.”
“Sir!” Miss Athylton drew herself up to her full height and looked her interlocutor squarely in the visage. For an instant he returned her scrutiny; then his eyes fell to the earth, stammering apologies. With a sweeping curtsey she passed out of the room, hand over hand.
From “L’Affaire Smith.”
As they sat there wrapping their arms about each other, she advanced the belief that they had loved in a former state of existence.
“But not as now, Irene, surely not as now.”
She was well content to let him feel so about it, and did not seek to alter the character of his emotion. To have done so would have cut her to the heart. On the contrary, a little bird perched in the passion-vine above them and sang several thrilling passages.
From “Clarisse.”
He gazed into her beautiful eyes for a considerable period, during which he did not converse; then he said, with an effort to be sociable: “It has been represented to me that you are a lady of great wealth. May I inquire if I have been rightly informed?”
Blushing energetically at the compliment, she replied in silence, and for a few minutes there was an embarrassing hiatus in the exchange of thought and feeling.
Fearing that he had offended her, the duke arose, and striding to the grand piano began to improvise diligently. At that moment there came in through the open window a sound of wheels on the gravel outside.