Bestsellers, American, 1895-1923

The Arrow of Gold: A Story Between Two Notes

Certain streets have an atmosphere of their own, a sort of universal fame and the particular affection of their citizens. One of such streets is the Cannebière, and the jest: “If Paris had a Cannebière it would be a little Marseilles” is the jocular expression of municipal pri...

Chapters

25. Chapter 25

Directly I had shut the door after the doctor I started shouting for Therese. “Come down at once, you wretched hypocrite,” I yelled at the foot of the stairs in a sort of frenzy...

2. Chapter 2

The street in which Mr. Blunt lived presented itself to our eyes, narrow, silent, empty, and dark, but with enough gas-lamps in it to disclose its most striking feature: a quant...

16. Chapter 16

Through the great arched window of the hall I saw the hotel brougham waiting at the door. On passing the door of the front room (it was originally meant for a drawing-room but a...

24. Chapter 24

My brain was in a whirl. I am safe to say that at this precise moment there was nobody completely sane in the house. Setting apart Therese and Ortega, both in the grip of unspea...

21. Chapter 21

It was the last evening of Carnival. The same masks, the same yells, the same mad rushes, the same bedlam of disguised humanity blowing about the streets in the great gusts of m...

7. Chapter 7

It was past four o’clock before I left the house, together with Mills. Mr. Blunt, still in his riding costume, escorted us to the very door. He asked us to send him the first fi...

3. Chapter 3

“A terra-cotta bust, I believe. Good? I don’t know. I rather think it’s in this house. A lot of things have been sent down from Paris here, when she gave up the Pavilion. When s...

22. Chapter 22

Coming out of the bright light of the studio I didn’t make out Therese very distinctly. She, however, having groped in dark cupboards, must have had her pupils sufficiently dila...

8. Chapter 8

It was on our return from that first trip that I took Dominic up to the Villa to be presented to Doña Rita. If she wanted to look on the embodiment of fidelity, resource, and co...

17. Chapter 17

I took my eyes from her face and became aware that dusk was beginning to steal into the room. How strange it seemed. Except for the glazed rotunda part its long walls, divided i...

12. Chapter 12

“Such a charming lady in a grey silk dress and a hand as white as snow. She looked at me through such funny glasses on the end of a long handle. A very great lady but her voice...

18. Chapter 18

That night I didn’t get on board till just before midnight and Dominic could not conceal his relief at having me safely there. Why he should have been so uneasy it was impossibl...

11. Chapter 11

That night I passed in a state, mostly open-eyed, I believe, but always on the border between dreams and waking. The only thing absolutely absent from it was the feeling of rest...

1. Chapter 1

Certain streets have an atmosphere of their own, a sort of universal fame and the particular affection of their citizens. One of such streets is the Cannebière, and the jest: “I...

14. Chapter 14

Without caring much about it I was conscious of sudden illumination. I said to myself confidently that these two people had been quarrelling all the morning. I had discovered th...

19. Chapter 19

Notwithstanding my misanthropy I had to see a few people on account of all these Royalist affairs which I couldn’t very well drop, and in truth did not wish to drop. They were m...

23. Chapter 23

I had a momentary suspicion that I had said something stupid. Her smile amongst many other things seemed to have meant that, too. And I answered it with a certain resignation:

9. Chapter 9

Doña Rita was curious to know how I got on with her peasant sister and all I could say in return for that inquiry was that the peasant sister was in her own way amiable. At this...

10. Chapter 10

On our return from that expedition we came gliding into the old harbour so late that Dominic and I, making for the café kept by Madame Léonore, found it empty of customers, exce...

4. Chapter 4

Sometimes I wonder yet whether Mills wished me to oversleep myself or not: that is, whether he really took sufficient interest to care. His uniform kindliness of manner made it...

20. Chapter 20

I must say that for the next three months I threw myself into my unlawful trade with a sort of desperation, dogged and hopeless, like a fairly decent fellow who takes deliberate...

13. Chapter 13

The windows of that room gave out on the street of the Consuls which as usual was silent. And the house itself below me and above me was soundless, perfectly still. In general t...

6. Chapter 6

Mills got up and approached the figure at the window. To my extreme surprise, Mr. Blunt, after a moment of obviously painful hesitation, hastened out after the man with the whit...

5. Chapter 5

For this, properly speaking wonderful, reason I was the only one of the company who could listen without constraint to the unbidden guest with that fine head of white hair, so b...

15. Chapter 15

wait for his return. I figured him to myself lying dressed on his bed sleeping like a stone. But there was no denying that the mother was holding me with an awful, tortured inte...