The Limit

"Yes. We two--you _and_ I--always seem to make such an enormous family party! Of course, I know we have to go about in these huge batches sometimes--to your mother, and that sor...

Harry de Freyne stood in his usual position, smoking a cigarette, and leaning a little forward, with his back to the mirror as if to resist the temptation of looking into it. Th...

"It's extremely kind of you, Harry, to let me come around like this in the morning. I dare say you want to be working sometimes. I'm really afraid of being in the way, but I was...

Romer's mother usually received him with a sarcastic remark, such as "Oh, so you remember that I'm not dead yet?" or "I wonder you find time to come at all," or something of the...

Romer walked back, trying to throw off the irritating effect of his mother's pin-pricks. As was his usual custom when he was a little depressed, he went home and sat down in fro...

Van Buren had been brought up on Thackeray and Dickens, above all on old pictures from _Punch_; Du Maurier's drawings enjoyed at an early age had made him romantic about everyth...

"More flowers from Van Buren? Let me look at them. A spray of lilies of the valley; how touching! He expects you to wear them at the opera. I think it's _such_ a mistake to wear...

Van Buren had had many pleasures, many gratifications since he had been in London; his dreams--the dreams inspired by Du Maurier's drawings when he was a little boy--had been ve...

Miss Luscombe lived with her mother in a species of tank, or rather in a flat that gave that impression because it was in the basement. It was dark, and such glimpses as they ha...

At this moment an old-fashioned-looking victoria drove up, drawn by two large grey horses. In it sat a rather fat and important-looking lady, with greyish red hair, a straight d...

Harry had baffled Mrs. Wyburn for the time. He always dealt with his difficulties one by one as they cropped up, not _en masse_, and invariably in a manner that relieved the ten...

"Yes, Romer, on the whole I don't think our season's been a success. With any amount of struggle, worry, bother, clothes, motoring, and making up parties, we've just succeeded i...

Romer's mother, looking intensely cross--it was her form of deep thought--was re-embroidering, with extra little stitches, and unnecessary little French knots, and elaborate lit...

Miss Luscombe, humming a tune, was wandering round her drawing-room, arranging it. She always hummed a little tune when she was alone, if possible some quaint old French air. No...

"And so you see, don't you, Lady Walmer, that I really simply couldn't do it--I mean I must do it. They're expecting me there for the whole summer. How could I throw them over a...

This lady lived in a kind of model cottage in a garden in Ham Common. It was not at all like the ideal, 'quaint' model cottages that one sees advertised by well-known firms of f...

Daphne and Cyril sat in the garden together. The conditions seemed ideal. It was a lovely afternoon; the sun was hot, but a gay irresponsible little west wind stirred the trees;...

With characteristic amiability, combined with that courage which had caused impatient people, who snubbed her in vain, to say she had the hide of a rhinoceros, Miss Luscombe had...

Mrs. Wyburn found Miss Westbury being sensible and decided and holding forth about things in general to one or two friends over the tea-cups. Something in the way the old lady s...

Miss Luscombe was looking out of the window, looking up to the street, waiting. At last she saw from her basement (the "tank," as her friends called it) a glimpse on the pavemen...

To have eleven plays, all written out of one's own head, and all being performed simultaneously in American, in Eskimo, and even in Turkish, besides in every known European lang...

"No words can tell you how I despise your point of view. Just tell me something I want to know. Wasn't there a sort of little scene at this dance last night?"

The vehicle flew smoothly along down Park Lane, past the Marble Arch into the Edgware Road, and on from there between houses and shops, growing gradually uglier and uglier, to M...

When Harry came down to breakfast, a little late, he found Valentia waiting to pour out his coffee, and some letters on his plate. She watched him as he opened them. Most of the...

By this time Van Buren was entirely in Harry's confidence; that is to say, Harry had gradually trained him to bear without flinching the situation as Harry represented it. He be...

They were sitting in the rose garden with Valentia. It was still quite light, though the sunset glow had nearly faded. There was a rich mellow tone in the sky, a promise of peac...

What a delicate air there was in the garden! There had been a little rain in the night, but Valentia supposed it to be dew. Every little sound seemed the softest music, to the s...

"Doesn't she look jolly at sunrise? All that pink and mauve in the sky tones in so well. It seems to suit her. That's how she really should be painted," said Harry, in the tone...

On arriving in London, Vaughan found his secretary with the usual heaps of letters. One envelope, addressed in a large and rather infantine hand, was put aside for him. The note...

"What a pity one can't be an artist without having the artistic temperament! It always seems to mean being late for meals, and losing your temper, or being amusing when every on...

To harmonise with the Dickens's garden it ought to have been white muslin with flounces and a pink sash. But it was a quite long, dark blue Liberty satin, made by a smart dressm...

When the sisters came back from their drive Harry was sitting on the little marble terrace reading _Count Florio and Phillis K._ and smoking cigarettes. With almost conjugal unf...

The only person in the family who did not thoroughly approve of Gladys's decision was her mother. Mrs. Brill thought it sheer madness to decline proposals of a 'gentleman from t...

Romer started to go by himself for a five-mile walk, leaving Daphne, Valentia and Harry in the garden, but a nail in his boot hurt so much that, after the first half-mile, Romer...

Romer went back to his hotel that evening feeling happier than he had ever expected to be again. He felt sure now that everything would be perfectly right. He refused to allow h...

Romer had made one mistake in his calculations. He had forgotten that Harry was a talker. He fully believed that the young man would go back and get all possible credit from Val...