The Pest

“As you will,” Maddison said, seemingly careless and supercilious, but in reality closely watching his opponent’s face. “I hope you will not mind my both sitting and smoking; bo...

THE next few days were to Marian days of tumult. Her abandonment of herself to Geraldstein had wrought in her a far more serious and far different change to that which had resul...

MADDISON being engaged to lunch and tea on the following Sunday—the first of those on which he expected his suppers to commence again—Marian was left to herself the whole day, s...

THAT afternoon Marian had gone out, thinking it possible Maddison might call, and she was pleased to hear on her return that he had done so. He was anxious then: waiting makes t...

HAD Maddison known that West’s advice had been inspired by Marian he would have set it aside angrily, but in his ignorance he looked on it as curiously coincidental with much of...

THESE days were almost unalloyed joy to Maddison, and full of pleasure to Marian, only checkered by the difficulty which she saw before her of persuading him to allow her to ret...

BOTH in situation and in itself, Stone’s Hotel is respectable and dull. Desperately so, Marian found it, as she stood looking out of the drawing room window on the sunlit, color...

ALICE LANE walked quietly along the pier toward the sea, having left West alone with his wife, who was suffering from one of her racking headaches that formed the chief symptom...

THOUGH the days were lengthening out toward the spring, there were many hours during each when the light was not clean and clear enough for painting; these Maddison found unspea...

IN the early days of their acquaintanceship Mrs. Harding had felt very favorably disposed toward Marian, but gradually appreciation had given place to envy, and liking had been...

He worked occasionally at “The Rebel,” but dared not touch the face or hands. Marian’s absence, however, served to increase her influence over him greatly; he longed with painfu...

IT was on one of those warm, sunshiny mornings with which Londoners are sometimes startled in mid January that Maddison drove down to Victoria Station _en route_ for Brighton. S...

THE next morning all trace of mist on the distant sea had vanished, but though the sun shone splendidly, the air still bit shrewdly. West rose with the spirit of discontent in h...

ACACIA GROVE, Kennington, was once upon a time, and not so many years ago, the home of snug citizens, who loved to dwell on the borderland of town and country. It is a wide road...

EVEN in winter time the Manor House at Chelmhurst is a cheerful abode; the garden is no mere waste of promises kept and made; the two great yew-trees on the lawn behind the hous...

PROBABLY Maddison alone knew that Mortimer was not the empty-hearted cynic that he wished the world to believe him to be. Mortimer’s terrible handicap was that his character was...

THE picture made good progress, Maddison working at it with his whole heart. As her nature blossomed out before him, her joy in pleasure, he realized clearly and more clearly ho...

WHILE the sun was shining cheerily at Brighton the rain was pouring down drearily in London, Acacia Grove looking its very worst under the leaden sky; the roadway a sea of mud,...

MARIAN understood that if her bargain with Maddison was to last, it must be made satisfying to him as well as to herself. She did not think that because the first skirmish had b...

MARIAN locked herself into the bedroom and sat down before the glass, laughing at her flushed, angry face. She was too astute to try to cajole herself into believing that Edward...

MARIAN was very angry at West’s unexpected desertion after the theater. When she reached home she sat down by the bright fire in the drawing room, which she had told the servant...

FOR the first time West hesitated in his dealing with a woman. Partly it was that Marian puzzled as well as attracted him, partly it was that the precipitancy of his marriage wi...

Absence from her had made her influence the stronger; each hour the recollection of her face had grown more clear—the droop of the eyelids, their sudden lifting and the keen, se...

George Maddison, tall, erect, dark, walked slowly along, his eyes, ever ready to seize upon any striking effect of color, noting the curious mingling of lights: the dull yellow...

“Why, of course you know I will,” he answered, eyeing her keenly, wondering if after all she were about to tell him that he could help her in the difficulty created by her broth...

THE instant the door had shut behind Mortimer, Maddison plucked the scorching papers from the fire; they had by sheer chance fallen on a mass of black coals out of reach of the...