A Living Lie

The Fresneau family were at dinner when the commissionaire delivered Suzanne's letter. Françoise entered, holding the dainty envelope in her great red hand, and the expression o...

'What a wicked woman! What a wicked woman!' muttered René as he went down the staircase, now re-echoing with the shouts of the call-boy. He trembled with agitation and asked him...

In that strange mental disease called jealousy the intervals between the attacks are periods of delight. For some days or for some hours the feelings of love regain their divine...

Suzanne knew the Baron's eagle eye too well to imagine that the scene in the box had entirely escaped him. How much had he seen? What did he think? These two questions were of c...

Two footmen in livery drew back the curtains from before the miniature stage. The scene being laid 'In a garden, in Venice,' nothing had been required in the way of scenery beyo...

When René Vincy had got as far as the Museum gates without finding Suzanne a crowd of contradictory ideas burst so suddenly upon him that he was lifted, metaphorically speaking,...

When Suzanne left the house in the Rue Coëtlogon her next meeting with René was already arranged. After taking a few steps down the little street she stopped and turned her head...

'It's Madame Komof's little poet,' said Suzanne, as soon as the door had closed upon René. The tone in which she replied to the Baron's mute interrogation indicated the familiar...

Every morning a little before nine Paul Moraines entered his wife's room. By that time she had had her bath and was employed in attending to little trifles. Her small white feet...

The shock of the novel and varied sensations experienced by René Vincy on that eventful evening had been so great that it was impossible for him to analyse them as he made his w...

Two days after this terrible scene Claude Larcher was standing on the balcony of Colette's rooms, which overlooked the Tuileries gardens. It was about two in the afternoon, and...

This delightful existence had been going on for about two months with nothing to break its sweet monotony but the pain of parting and the joy of meeting when, one morning, just...

An appointment had been made for eleven o'clock on the following Tuesday, in the Salon Carré of the Louvre. Whilst Suzanne was being driven to the old palace in a cab she was co...

The letter posted by René at Saint-Cloud had duly reached its destination on the morning of the day that was to complete poor Rosalie's unhappiness. Suzanne had received it with...

Suzanne thought she was very clever--and not without reason; but by being too clever people often defeat their own ends. Accustomed to confound love and mere gallantry, she knew...

'Can a man of sense, and a good fellow into the bargain, fall as low as that?' René asked himself on leaving his unhappy friend. Then, thinking of Colette's handsome face, he mu...

The two young men got into the cab and were soon being rapidly driven along the Rue du Cherche-Midi in order to reach the Boulevard du Montparnasse, and so follow, by way of the...

The door of the vehicle swung open, and a young man stepped gingerly out, pulling the collar of his fur-lined coat a little more closely about his throat. The dainty patent-leat...

When, with his usual bantering smile, Claude entered the small dining-room he found that _la compagnie_, as Françoise called it, comprised René--the hero of what seemed to his f...

René had entered the house in the Rue de Bagneux a prey to painful impressions, and when he left it his impressions were more painful still. Then he had been discontented with h...