Bella Donna: A Novel

"It's this awful insomnia that's doing for me. All my life I've slept so well--till now. And the rheumatic pains; how can the sun--Ruby, sometimes I think it's nothing to do wit...

He leaned forward, and, as he did so, her mind went to Baroudi, and she remembered exactly the look of his shoulders and of his throat when he was leaning towards her.

Now Nigel had been taken forcibly out of her hands, and the beautiful prison was no more theirs. And this return to the home which had seen the opening of her life in Egypt stra...

"Why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't they? But this winter we'll keep to ourselves, learn to know each other, learn to trust each other, learn to--to love each other in the very b...

And darkness led to deeper darkness. Never before in any building had Isaacson felt the call to advance so strongly as he felt it now. And yet he lingered. He was forced to ling...

She must miss any one who occasionally stepped in to break her solitude. Sometimes he had wondered at this solitude's completeness. He wondered again now. Everybody had their fr...

She sank down again upon the divan. But her expression did not change. He believed that she succeeded in making her face a mere mask while she thought with a furious rapidity.

"Are you a child? I shall let it to your husband at a price that will suit his purse, so that you may be housed as you ought to be. I shall let it with my crew, my servants, my...

When she was in her bedroom she shut the door and sat down just as she was, with a veil over her face, the collar of her dust-coat turned up, her shining hair dishevelled by the...

Mrs. Armine at first stood perfectly still looking at the monster. Then she made Nigel a sign to spread her dust-cloak upon the ridge of the sand, and she sat down on it, and lo...

Baroudi made no reply. She looked away over the wild geraniums, down the alley between the trees to the hollow in the river-bank, and she saw a lateen sail glide by, and vanish...

"Here at last is a letter, the first I've sat down to write to you since the note telling you of my marriage. I had your kind letter in answer, and showed it to Ruby, who was as...

What his intention was she did not know, but he could not have said anything to her at that moment that would have struck more rudely upon her sensuous pleasure in the change on...

"The Rector is embarrassed, his wife appalled. The Doctor's 'lady,' much as she longs for one's guineas, tries to stop him even from attending one's dying bed. The Squire, thoug...

Isaacson had never before spoken so roughly, so almost ferociously to a dependant. When Hassan had gone, ferociously Isaacson opened the letter. It was not very long, and his ey...

She paused before answering the question. As a fact, she had often enjoyed her expeditions with Nigel in the bright and shimmering gaiety of the exquisite climate of Luxor; the...

He prayed, and was a sensualist. He fasted, and loved luxury. He could control his appetites, and fling self-control to the winds. But in all that he did and left undone there w...

Arabs never know their ages. A man, a soldier whom she had known, had told her that once, had told her that Arabs of sixty declare themselves to be twenty-five, not from vanity,...

Secretly he gave a special meaning to the ordinary expression. To-night there was a splendour in his friend which seemed to be created by an inner strength radiating outward, in...

Had her action been very unwise? Several times that day, while with Baroudi, she had felt something that was almost like panic invade her at the thought of what she had done. No...

Was that a formula of Ibrahim's? To-day he seemed to speak the words with a conviction that was not usual, with some curious under-meaning. How much of a boy was he really? As M...

Nigel waited, as if expecting something more. But Isaacson kept silence. Dinner was over. Nigel got up, and walking steadily, though not yet with the brisk lightness of complete...

Doctor Meyer Isaacson had got on as only a modern Jew whose home is London can get on, with a rapidity that was alarming. He seemed to have arrived as a bullet arrives in a body...

Nigel! Was it possible? Isaacson sprang up and hurried on deck. There was a boat from the _Loulia_ alongside, and on the upper deck was Doctor Hartley walking restlessly about....

That the death of Lord Harwich would recall Nigel to England he scarcely supposed. The death had been sudden. It would be impossible for Nigel to arrive for the funeral. And Isa...

They stepped out on to the waste ground. His hand was still on her arm, and he led her down to the stream. The young moon was already setting. The starry sky was flecked here an...

When he was gone, Isaacson stood by the mantel-piece for nearly five minutes, thinking and motionless. The sound of the little clock striking roused him. He lifted his head, loo...

With anxious fingers she took out of her dressing-case the gilded box he had given her, and opened the lid. But, having opened it, she dared not look at herself in the glass, an...

He gazed at her steadily, with a scrutiny that was almost cruel. The face presented to him in the bold light that flowed in through the large window near which their chairs were...

As she spoke, she put up her parasol and sauntered away towards the Nile, stopping now and then to look at a flower or tree, to take a rose in her hand, smell it, then let it go...

"I think feeling enters into the matter. Often one gets an immediate impression, before one knows anything about the facts of a life. The facts may seem to give that impression...

With his usual quickness of mind he had realized the exact strength of the strategic position she had so suddenly and unexpectedly taken up. For the moment he wished to gain tim...

Very swiftly he had returned with the tide in the night. Now, in the eye of day, he must go up river against it. The men toiled hard, lifting themselves from their seats with ea...

She spoke with a sudden sharp irritation. To-day her marriage with Nigel seemed to her like a sword suspended above her, which would presently descend upon her, striking her to...

The dinner was not the _supplice_ Mrs. Armine had anticipated. She talked, she laughed, she was gay, frivolous, gentle, careless, as in the days long past when she had charmed m...

He took up the _carte du jour_, studied it at length and with obvious care, then gave an order in excellent French, which the steward hastened away to carry out. This done, he t...

He took up his hat and held it tightly, crushing the soft brim between his fingers. Doctor Hartley was looking at him with the undisguised enmity of the egoist tricked. He had h...

She spoke, and her voice seemed to be taken at once as its prey by the silence. Even her thought seemed to be seized by it, and to be conveyed away from her like a living thing...

This letter arrived by an evening post, and Isaacson read it after his day's work was done. When he had finished it, he took out from a drawer Nigel's letter to him, which he ha...

"Of course! I remember! He looks like a knight-errant. So did his father, poor Harwich. I used to act with Harwich in the early never-mind-whats at Burnham House. One scarcely e...

"Call me, then, when it comes. But I'm going to take a lesson in coffee-making as they do it out here. It will amuse me to make our coffee after lunch. Besides, it will be somet...