Tenterhooks

Lady Everard was sitting in her favourite attitude at her writing-table, with her face turned to the door. She had once been photographed at her writing-table, with a curtain be...

At the Carlton Aylmer had easily persuaded Bruce and Edith to dine with him next day, although they were engaged to the elder Mrs Ottley already. He said he expected two or thre...

Ever since his earliest youth, Bruce had always had, at intervals, some vague, vain, half-hearted entanglement with a woman. The slightest interest, practically even common civi...

The following Tuesday, Edith, Aylmer, Vincy and Mrs Ottley were sitting on the veranda after dinner. They had a charming little veranda which led on to a lawn, and from there st...

Because Edith had not been feeling very well, that seemed no reason why she should be the centre of interest; and Bruce, with that jealousy of the privileges of the invalid and...

The absurdly simple explanation, made almost in dumb show, by action rather than in dialogue, was soon given. He was surprised, simply enchanted, at the entire frankness of her...

Vincy had the reputation of spending his fortune with elaborate yet careful lavishness, buying nothing that he did not enjoy, and giving away everything he did not want. At the...

A week had passed since the news of Bruce's elopement. The little group at Westgate didn't seem to have much been affected by it; and this was the less surprising as Aylmer and...

The Mitchells were, as Vincy had said, extremely hospitable; they had a perfect mania for receiving; they practically lived for it, and the big house at Hampstead, with its larg...

When Aylmer Ross got back to the little brown house in Jermyn Street he went to his library, and took from a certain drawer an ivory miniature framed in black. He looked at it f...

The next evening Bruce and Edith were going to the Society Theatre with Aylmer. It was their last meeting before he was to go away, Edith half expected that he would put it off,...

Edith was expecting Aylmer to call that afternoon before he went away. She was surprised to find how perturbed she was at the idea of his going away. He had become almost a part...

Whether to behave with some coolness to Mitchell, and be stand-offish, as though it had been all his fault, or to be lavishly apologetic, was the question. Bruce could not make...

Aylmer guessed at once she had seen him driving. Being a man of sense, and not an impossible hero in a feuilleton, instead of going away again and leaving the misunderstanding t...

'I should have thought that if you liked anyone so _very_ much, you would want to see them all the time, as much as possible, always--even with other people...anything rather th...

In the fresh cheerfulness of the early morning, after sleep, with the hot June sun shining in at the window, Aylmer used to think he was better. He would read his letters and pa...

The following afternoon Edith was standing by the piano in her condensed white drawing-room, trying over a song, which she was accompanying with one hand, when to her surprise t...

Edith had become an immense favourite with the Mitchells. They hardly ever had any entertainment without her. Her success with their friends delighted Mrs Mitchell, who was not...

Though only by the merest, slightest movement of an eyelash Edith could not avoid showing her surprise. No-one ever had less the air of a married man. Also, she was quite ridicu...

Edith and Bruce, from different directions, arrived at the same moment at their door, and went up together in the lift. On the little hall-table was a letter addressed to Edith....

Edith had been very pretty at twenty, but at twenty-eight her prettiness had immensely increased; she had really become a beauty of a particularly troubling type. She had long,...

Edith did not know, herself, what had induced her to write that letter to Paris. Some gradual obscure influence, in an impulsive moment of weakness, a conventional dread of Pari...

'What divine heavenly pets and ducks of angels they are!' exclaimed Lady Everard rather distractedly. 'Angels! Divine! And so good, too! I never saw such darlings in my life. Lo...

Since his return Aylmer saw everything through what he called a rose-coloured microscope--that is to say, every detail of his life, and everything connected with it, seemed to h...

'I've got to go up to town on special business,' said Bruce, one afternoon, after receiving a telegram which he had rather ostentatiously left about, hoping he would be question...

'Don't say anything. I don't wish you to wear anything. I'm anxious you should look your best, really nice, especially as we haven't been to the Mitchells' for so long. Wear you...

'It always seems to me so unlike you,' Aylmer said (he had arrived punctually at twenty minutes to four)--'your extreme fondness for newspapers. You're quite celebrated as a col...

The deceit of both of them hurt her immensely. But she pulled herself together. It was a case for action. She felt a bitter, amused contempt, but she felt it half-urgent _not_ t...

'Mrs Ottley,' said Miss Townsend,' do you mind looking at this essay of Archie's? I really don't know what to think of it. I think it shows talent, except the spelling. But it's...