The Lighted Match

The oracle spoke through the bearded lips of a farmer perched on the top step of his cabin porch. The while he construed omens, a setter pup industriously gnawed at his boot-heels.

In the large living-room, Van Bristow, the master of "Idle Times," had expressed his tastes. Here in the almost severe wainscoting, in inglenook and chimney-corner, one found th...

"My boy," whispered Mrs. Van from her end of the table, to Pagratide on her right, "I relinquish you to the girl on your other side. You have made a very brave effort to talk to...

His marriage had, only eighteen months before, cut his life sharply with the boundary of an epoch. The den bore something of the atmosphere of a museum dedicated to past eras. I...

Separated from the others, Benton and Cara came upon a small grove, like an oasis in the stretching acres of stubble. Under a scarlet maple that reared itself skyward all aflame...

When Benton had straightened out his car for the run to the city, and the road had begun to slip away under the tires, he turned to McGuire, his chauffeur.

When Cara, waiting at the bridge, had seen the car flash up, a bearded Bedouin at the wheel, she had leaped lightly to the seat beside him, without waiting for the machine to co...

The coldness of the moonlight killed the pallor of Karyl's face, but added a note of stark accentuation to his set chin and labored self-containment. Von Ritz, despite his bedra...

Slowly, with a gesture almost subconscious, Benton slipped an unopened envelope from his breast pocket; turned it over; looked at it and slipped it back, still unopened. Then, l...

"Of course," continued Blanco absently, "no one could regret more profoundly than the Grand Duke any accident or fatality which might befall his royal kinsman, yet even the holy...

With the sapphire bay of Puntal at his back, his knees clasped between interlacing fingers, Benton sat on the stone sea-wall and affected to whistle up a lightness of heart. Nea...

On the next afternoon at the base of the flag-staff above Look-out Rock, Lieutenant Lapas nervously swept the leagues of sea and land, spreading under him, with strong glasses....

could not refuse me if I came again. Dear, this is 'again.' The _Isis_ is a speck out there at sea awaiting a signal. Will you go? I have no throne to offer, but--"

"Look, _Señor_," exclaimed the Spaniard. "The King has entered the fortress." Then, seeing that the eyes of both man and girl turned at his words from an intent gaze, not on the...

This meeting had seemed to be the result of a chance introduction. It had in reality been carefully designed by the French manipulator of underground wires. Louis Delgado he alr...

Manuel Blanco was ubiquitous during the first days following the coronation. He listened to the fragments of talk that drifted along the streets. He frequented the band concerts...

More suggestive of a stowaway than a millionaire, thought Blanco the following afternoon, when he had come over the side of the _Isis_ and sought out the owner of the yacht. Ben...

There were several things to harrow Benton's thoughts aside from the ingenious tortures of memory. Blanco should have arrived at Monte Carlo on the day of their separation. Bent...

Left alone, Benton spent ten minutes in the room, then passed through the window to the balcony and went down into the miniature garden. His face was hot and his pulses heighten...

"When the Duke avowed himself to be kidnaped, he committed an error so grave that it can hardly be--overestimated." The speaker used the last word as an afterthought. His first...

"And yet," declared young Harcourt, "if there still survives, anywhere in the world, a vestige of Romance, this should be her refuge; her last stand against the encroachments of...

The following day was Tuesday. It found Benton nearer cheerfulness than he had been since the _Isis_ had in February pointed her bow eastward for the run across the Atlantic, un...

Out of disconnected fragments of fact and memory he had evolved a theory. It was a theory as yet immature and half-baked, but one upon which he resolved to act, trusting to the...

Since the anchor had been weighed at Naples, the days had passed uneventfully for the indolently cruising _Isis_ with no word from Galavia. But at last the operator caught his c...

In the gardens of the hotel, the paths lay ankle-deep in scattered confetti. Already the scores of lights were going out and those that remained shone on the wreckage of an ente...

Martin, tall and aggressively British, from the black silk tassel on his red fez to the battered puttees and brown boots that had once come out of Bond Street, stood watching th...

The _muezzin_ had called the devout to their prayer-rugs for the third time that day, when the girl and the two men turned from the Stamboul end of Galata Bridge into the tawdry...

Louis gave a half-shuddering sigh of relief. He had none of that righteous horror of crime which makes the face of murder hideous, but in its place he had all the terrors of the...

In Paris a small party of gentlemen, among whom were represented all the national types of Southern Europe, were engaged in an informal discussion of very formal affairs. They o...