The Halo

Lady Kingsmead was one of those piteous beings, a middle-aged young woman. She was forty-six, but across a considerably-lighted room looked thirty-six. The shock, when one appro...

She sat in a straight-backed chair near the dressing-table, and a huge basket of mending of different kinds stood on the floor by her side. The room was very simple, for she lov...

The morning of the eighth of September dawned that year very gloriously, and Brigit Mead saw it dawn. Théo had begged her the evening before to go with him to the castle to see...

When Joyselle came in at eight o'clock he went straight to his room to dress. He was still very angry, but his anger was less poignant than his sense of helpless defeat. Brigit'...

Brigit left the villa the next morning and went straight to London. And the nearer she got to the old town which contained, for her, the very kernel of life, her spirits mounted...

"No, no. He's downstairs; wants to see you. There's been some kind of a row in Golden Square. _Petite mère_ and the Master have been talking for an hour, as hard as ever they ca...

Brigit went for a long walk that afternoon, as was her wont when she wished to think. As she started from the house she met Carron. "Look here, Brigit," he said roughly, "you sl...

The Earl of Kingsmead lay flat on his stomach on the warm, short grass by the carp-pond, and studied therein the ponderous manoeuvres of an ancient fish, believed by the people...

When the women had left the dining-room Carron got up from his place and sat down by Joyselle, who looked at him with unconcealed astonishment. He had never liked Carron, and kn...

Number 57 Golden Square was dark when Joyselle's cab stopped in front of it, and he, after tenderly depositing his violin-case under the little portico, assisted Brigit to aligh...

Freddy Newlyn was a kindly little man, with an absurd fussy manner full of importance, as so many kindly little men have. Is it by some gentle providential dispensation that the...

Opposite No. 6 Rue Victor Hugo is a long black wall, and in the middle of this wall an old-fashioned gas lantern was glowing red when Joyselle and Brigit arrived.

Lady Brigit leaned back in her corner and surveyed the otherwise empty compartment with a sigh of relief. She knew that her face still bore signs of the anger roused by her moth...

The restaurant is, of course, the Mansions being inhabited chiefly by women, very bad indeed, but it obviates the necessity of cooks and kitchens in the, for the most part, dimi...

"My dear Gerald, anyone would think _I_ wanted her to do it!" Lady Kingsmead's voice was very fretful, for Carron had done nothing but talk to her about Brigit for the last fort...

Théo had not changed; that they had not quarrelled was quite evident, for when she spoke to him there was something of the gentleness of the day before in her manner; but this e...

"If I do, they will say that I am in love with some man who either won't have me, or is already married, or that I am forced to, by my debts. If I don't--then this will go on in...

The parrot, whose name was Guillaume le Conquérant, was a magnificent, fluffy, grey bird picked out with green. His eye was knowing, and swift and deep his infrequent but never-...

She had slept very badly, for she seemed to have reached a crisis in her relations with Joyselle; and lying awake in the heat that the storm had but increased, she passed hours...

Dinner that night was a very grand affair. Fledge inspired awe by his majestic mien--Fledge liked duchesses--and Burton and William, the recently promoted, with their heads stri...

His light-heartedness, chiefly due to his faculty for ignoring side-issues and enjoying the present, was of course magnified as well by the fact that it followed close on the he...

"I have not slept," the girl explained, "and am going for a walk. I have promised to take Tommy to see 'Peter Pan' this afternoon and must feel better when I do."

Joyselle's party arrived at Falaise the next evening, and leaving Brigit at the inn in the Rue d'Argentin, the others drove on to old M. Joyselle's house in the Rue Victor Hugo.

Yellow Dog Papillon lay asleep on the Chesterfield in Joyselle's room. He was dreaming an enchanting dream about a particularly aromatic bone that he found in a dust-bin--a ham-...

The morning after her remarkable arrival in Golden Square Brigit Mead awoke to both these pleasant things. Somewhere downstairs someone was playing a simple, plaintive air on a...

The garden in the Rue Victor Hugo was full of long narrow tables covered with snowy cloths and as white china. In the pitiless noonday sun the display dazzled the eyes. In the m...

For she knew now that she would not break her engagement to-night. The end was not yet. And by the strange laws that govern things emotional between men and women, her self-cont...

There is on an olive-covered slope near the Mediterranean a certain shabby pink villa which is remarkable for one thing. In it, years ago, dwelt for a long time a man and a woma...

Brigit, who had been sent out for a walk, tramped steadily down the road towards the village, her hands in her jacket pockets, her chin buried in her little boa.

For two days Brigit Mead remained in her room, refusing to see anyone. Tommy, who had reached the period when convalescents sleep most of the time, was told that she was resting...

Poor little Tommy's passion for knowing things showed up very clearly the next few days, his over-active brain working hard propounding to itself question on subjects that Brigi...

Lady Kingsmead, who was going to the Newlyns' ball later, was having dinner in her little sitting-room when Carron came rushing in, nearly treading on the heels of the afflicted...

Lady Brigit Mead was sitting on the hummocky sparse grass under an ancient olive-tree, looking seawards. She wore a blue frock without any collar, and her face and long, round n...

There was to be no Bridge that evening, and by unspoken consent everyone sat in the hall. It was a cold night, and the roaring fire was pleasant to hear, and in the expressive s...

Brigit Mead went to her room, dismissed what her brother called her half of Amélie, the French maid, put on a dressing-gown, and sat down by the fire to think.

The tragedy of M. Bouillard's indecision was very real to Madame Chalumeau, but it was also one to which the good woman was thoroughly accustomed. For over three years M. Bouill...

He looked, as he felt, very tired, for he had been with Tommy most of the time, day and night, and played until even his great strength was nearly exhausted.

He stood, his arms hanging by his sides, looking at her without a word. Then, when the pause had grown unbearable, he returned slowly: "The night before last I saw you with Théo...

For the next four months she saw Joyselle almost daily. She never broached the subject of her engagement being broken, its permanence was taken for granted by everyone, and Tomm...

An hour later Brigit slowly mounted the stairs at the inn. She was desperately tired, and as unhappy as she was tired. Joyselle's attitude, although she was bound in common just...

Carron was late for breakfast the next morning, and when he came in found Brigit sitting in her mother's place, laughing and talking with Sir Henry Brinsley, who, much pleased b...

The house was an old one with a broad, low front door and shallow, much-worn oak stairs. In answer to Brigit's knock a Gamp-like person with a hare-lip appeared, and informing h...

It was only six o'clock and the air as yet was cool, but the trees leaning over the wall of Avocat Millot's garden opposite were grey with dust and parched with the heat of an e...

Joyselle's confession had been complete and circumstantial. He had not attempted to hide from her one thing, and in the relief of his, as it seemed, unavoidable avowal, he had h...

"Brigit--will you dance?" Théo bowed, a trifle lower than Englishmen bow, and offered her his arm with the very slightest suggestion of swagger. And somehow he reminded her at t...

As she went up the stairs in the house in Tite Street, Brigit recalled the occasion of her other visit there and shuddered. Poor Carron. Could it have been partly her fault?

The Duchess did like good music for nothing, and when, a week later, she was told on her arrival that Joyselle was to be of the party, she was much pleased. She was only an anci...

Tommy's frame of mind was too dignified to permit of his staring, but he was obviously surprised at Carron's presence, and when the man had gone he said with considerable import...

Brigit stared at them for a moment, wondering vaguely which of them was dead, which only fainting. Then, just as she was kneeling to raise her mother to a better position, the d...

The church of St. Gervais was packed with the majority of a crowd that extended well out down the broad steps and into the square, as the old bells rang a carillon for the old c...

Félicité had died in her sleep beside her husband. An hour before he had waked, and, lying quietly by her, thinking no doubt of the woman for whom he was going to desert her, he...

It was mid-May, and a fragrant breeze stirred the delicate curtains of Lady Kingsmead's little drawing-room in Pont Street. There were flowers everywhere, chiefly white lilacs,...

She had burnt her boats and the relief was great. Having broken with her mother, there was no need for her to write to Kingsmead. To Tommy she sent a note, saying that she was g...

Joyselle stared at her, his eyes like two lamps. Then rushing at her, he took her hands in his and bent over her. "Good God! Good God!" he cried rapidly in French, "_you_ are La...