The Disturbing Charm

"I don't know what you mean," she confessed, standing there all at sea. Then she put out a hand to the draperies of that door. Bewilderment gave place for the moment to a strong...

The scene with which the last chapter closed would have been further undeniable proof to Olwen of the too-potent success of her talisman, had she known of it. But how about the...

This hope proved to be vain before their train reached Willesden Junction. Out went the lights as the train came to a dead stand between two stations. Up went the windows; above...

Had she noticed the gravitating towards Mrs. Cartwright's chair of an evening of Captain Ross's friend, the young flyer, had she observed the gradual way in which it was becomin...

Mrs. Cartwright had left the French hotel the morning after--had left Les Pins and the man she had refused. Her place at table next to Jack Awdas had been given (as she guessed...

The entrance to this hive of activity was near Charing Cross, and its courtyard was one continual procession of cars, cyclists, motor-cyclists, dispatch cycles with little side-...

Quick as thought, Mrs. Cartwright ran a few steps along the balcony. Yes; the next window stood wide open. She dashed into the room, flooded with moonlight; white light that sho...

"I've got a table in the corner over here," said little Mr. Brown to Olwen through the buzz of talk that drowned all but the louder strains of the band in the tea-room of the Re...

The fiat, delivered in that ice-ax voice of his, cut through the polyglot murmur of the visitors gathered in the shining bare salon, all mirrors and decorations of artificial ir...

"When that warning came through, you see, I felt that it was for me too. I don't know what my own idea was when I went off with old Ross. He said, 'What the something do _you_ w...

Little Mr. Brown, who had taken his dinner as usual at the hotel, was lingering on the terrace on the other side of the building from the piazza. He was smoking a cigarette, whi...

"There's that that would be thought upon, I trow, beside the bride. The business of the kitchen's great, For it is fit that men should eat, Nor was it there denied."

In the basement, first of all, let us cast a glance at the _appartement_ that had echoed to the feasting of that luncheon party, and had been later the scene of a sedate and ult...

"When England needs The sons she breeds, And there's fighting to be done, No matter where, You will find him _there_, The Man behind the Gun.... It's Bill, Bill, Billy, Billy, B...

That day, since the Professor chose (as he often did) to give lunch a miss while he wandered and pottered about in the Forest, he sent his niece into _dejeuner_ alone. Her he ne...

As she was running down the broad red and white steps at the front of the hotel, Olwen met, coming up, the woman whom Mrs. Cartwright had noticed at lunch for her hopeless well-...

"Alors elle doit toujours se retrancher dans l'interet d'argent en parlant de ses ouvrages, et dire, par exemple, a un chef d'escadron: 'Votre etat vous donne quatre mille franc...

"It's perfectly easy to have a good time in this world without any men," declared Mrs. Cartwright, smiling. "In fact, as easy as it is with them. In many ways, easier!"

In Mrs. Cartwright's Westminster flat there were no children to cause those anxieties with which the enemy had made himself more detested than by any legitimate act of war. Her...

One table was empty, reserved for Mr. Awdas's party, but the young flying officer had been called away on duty just after his _fiancee's_ second song. Olwen was sorry for him, b...

"Yet I am bewitched with the rogue's company; if the rascal had not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged; it could not be else; I have drunk medicines."

"_We've_ had a ripping time!" Mrs. Cartwright said gaily, in answer to an enquiry from Captain Ross; young Jack Awdas, hearing, gave her a reproachful glance. But there was no t...

Almost roughly he dragged Jack Awdas into the little entrance lobby, where, under a couple of mounted ibex heads, a carved oak chest was piled up with khaki caps, gloves, and Br...

Little Mr. Brown, after he had seen Mrs. Cartwright's niece, the nurse, back to her rooms, trotted back to the Regent Palace Hotel all in a dither of undeniable funk.

"If there is one thing that bores a man," gave out Captain Ross, in a voice like the clashing together of Tube lift-gates--a tone that he had adopted all that evening, since not...

Where had she been all this time? In places of which the keynote was "Here today and gone tomorrow"; places that she had never even seen a year ago; places without associations,...

The words of Golden remained with her friend all the way back to Wembley Park, down the Drive of little red-roofed villas, and up the short-flagged path between the standard ros...

One thought only pervaded the place, from the topmost attics inhabited by Marie the Bretonne and the other _femmes-de-chambre_, down through the other floors to the wide _salons...

It is one of Fate's harshest rules that in one way or another we pay for our ecstasies. The more golden the moment the more dull and clouded must seem the hours that follow: and...

Then he resumed, in the rich deep voice that spoke English not as the English speak it, the voice that had done so much to bring the help of his great country into the War.

She knew that she must tire herself out. She had thought she was rather tired already from her tussle with the waves that afternoon, but that wasn't enough. She must be more exh...

It was "the" sentimental song of the moment, that song whose name varies from season to season. As I write, it is called differently from what it will be called by the time you...