The Jervaise Comedy

"But, look here, father," Brenda continued, turning to old Jervaise; "_why_ do you want me to come back? We've never got on, I and the rest of you. _Why_ can't you let me go and...

She waved her hands at him. "Sit down, Alfred," she commanded him, and in her pronunciation of his name I noticed for the first time the ripple of a French "r." Possibly her man...

He began to lose his temper. "I can't see that this has got anything to do with what we're discussing..." he said, but I had no intention of letting him off too easily. He had s...

"Oh! well," I said to myself at last. "I suppose it's got to be done," and I stepped out into the road, and very lazily and wearily began my awful tramp. The road ran uphill, in...

"Most people would," he replied gloomily. I was wondering what his own "pull" might be, the pull he would not use because the use of it conflicted with his ideal of playing the...

And I could not blame her for her contempt of me. I despised myself. I was a man without a serious interest. I had escaped vice, but I had always lived among surface activities....

My astonishment flamed into a feeling of acute annoyance. If any one had spoken to me at that moment, I should have been unforgivably rude. But no one had the least intention of...

It was Mrs. Jervaise who started the break-up of the party. She was attacked by a craving to yawn that gradually became irresistible. I saw the incipient symptoms of the attack...

"If I didn't miss all the important points you'd think so," Anne replied with a little childish pucker of perplexity coming in her forehead. "But story-telling isn't a bit in my...

I accepted his sacrifice without further protestation; and after he had carefully replaced the tarpaulin over the tonneau of the car, we set off briskly towards the Farm. About...

I did not give her confidence for confidence. I had practically promised Banks not to say that I had seen him on Jervaise Clump at five o'clock that morning, and I was not the l...

Once at Oakstone he had got into a serious scrape that had begun in bravado and ended by a public thrashing. He had poached a trout from the waters of a neighbouring landowner,...

I felt that Hughes had been scored off; but I instantly forgot such small triumphs in the delight of being able to get out into the night. Out there was romance and the smell of...

CHAPTER I THE FIRST HOUR II ANNE III FRANK JERVAISE IV IN THE HALL V DAYBREAK VI MORNING VII NOTES AND QUERIES VIII THE OUTCAST IX BANKS X THE HOME FARM XI THE STORY XII CONVERS...

And Jervaise quite obviously adored her. All that tactful confession of his in the park had been a piece of artifice. It had not, however, been framed to deceive _me_. I do not...

I was determined to tell her nothing less than the truth. "No," I confessed, "much of it was a result of what you said to me. I--I had an illumination. You made me see what a po...