The talkers

Sadoul on this or that had become fairly familiar to a talkative public. He had something to say about everything and anything. His personal convictions made no difference. And...

George Derring, Julian Fairless, and Harry Stayr organized the Fireside Club in New York to gratify the instincts of the slovenly well-to-do. Limited membership and a long waiti...

Sutton, face to face with his first real adventure, was fascinated by the little Queen in Green--not prepared, perhaps, to encounter such youthful shyness at Derring’s. And now...

Figures in brilliant silks entered--Pockman, Sadoul, a man and a young woman in street clothes, carrying valises, and George Derring wearing violet royal robes and tinsel crown,...

“Poor baby,” repeated Miss Cross, leaning forward and stroking the clasped fingers with a caressing touch. “Rigour has not yet set in,” she added, “nor is there any discolourati...

Sutton was too much wrought up to fall asleep, although reaction from shock now weighted him with physical weariness. Still dazed and depressed by the swift tragedy of his first...

Sutton slept late. The telephone beside his bed rang repeatedly but did not awaken him. He was still stupid with sleep when he opened his eyes. From habit he rang for coffee and...

But when, that night at Derring’s, Pockman raised his pale gaze from the dead girl and rested it on Sadoul, Sadoul realised instantly that he had never trusted Sidney Pockman. A...

Sadoul went home. His thoughts were not very clear. The interview at the laboratory seemed unreal; the day itself like one that had not dawned. He remembered little of what they...

A telephone call from Sutton had awakened her that morning; she had been glad to hear his voice again; the incident had made the beginning of a grey day very delightful.

“Awfully sorry to be so late,” he said, gracefully saluting and retaining her hand. “I suppose you’ll put me out bodily, as you did before----” He checked his breezy loquacity a...

Badgered, disgusted, but at bay, he was perhaps too cynical, too indifferent, or possibly too confident of himself to lie or to evade newspaper publicity--the terror of all repu...

Even from the beginning, the grotesqueries of a comic-opera cabinet had alarmed the business world. Now, through eight incredible years, amid the ape-like leaps and capers of a...

So his father, Charles Edward Stuart Sutton, conforming to the custom of methodical forebears, strolled out of the flower-bedecked private office on his sixtieth birthday, weari...

Through a murk of business despair the miserable year approached its end. The national administrative body, too, like a dying rat, was now nearing dissolution--with kicks and je...

Her own account of her behaviour surprised and disconcerted him. He hadn’t supposed she was likely to do that sort of thing; yet, after all there was no reason for him to think...

Freda told me that you telephoned. I’m so sorry I was out. I haven’t heard from you since. Are you discouraged? I thought you threatened to keep an eye on me. Empty threat!

Stayr said: “It’s usually somebody you never heard of. Possibly she once made a monkey of Sadoul. Probably she’s making another of Stuart Sutton. Certainly there has been, is, a...

It was likely to be a dull evening at the Fireside. Frances Hazlet was giving a birthday party--or, rather, some kind gentleman was giving one for her, and had taken Fantozzi’s...

From his office he had tried to get Gilda on the telephone, but she was still asleep. Then he called up Sadoul at his apartment and at the offices of one or two periodicals, wit...

Often in those days, working with his secretary, or, in the little inner office, working alone, something approaching realisation of the problems in which he was being involved...

Christmas Eve she was like a little girl, trotting about the apartment with ropes of evergreen, filling every vase with holly, hanging wreaths at every window, tying up dozens o...

They had expected to spend New Year’s Eve together. She telephoned him at the office that morning, asking him to come uptown early. Something in her voice made him uneasy, and s...

He called a taxi and drove to the laboratory. It being New Year’s Day, the place was closed; but a very dirty old man, who said he was the engineer, answered the bell.

When Sutton came out on Fifty-seventh Street a raw wind was blowing from the river. Whether from this or from reaction the boy was shivering in his overcoat; and he turned up th...

It was Life’s first hurricane for Stuart Sutton. It had arisen in fury out of nothing; caught him unprepared. Where was it driving him? On what unknown shore would it wreck him;...

“Sometimes you look like one,” returned Pockman. He tittered and carried the tray to a porcelain table. First he sponged off the table with some pale yellow solution, then he pl...

The room which Gilda peeped into resembled a chemical laboratory in a way. There was some equipment for physical research, also, an X-ray machine, a camera, electrical apparatus...

Freda brought the card-table and spread it. Gilda, on the couch, one knee crossed over the other, glanced absently through the morning paper, pausing between pages to reach out...

Miss Cross, in her neat uniform, came in. She remembered Sutton, gave him a quick look, clear, interested, but without conclusion concerning their appearance together for the se...

The daily grind down town was beginning to wear on young Sutton. It was not the routine of business, not the new responsibility that dragged him; it was the constant depression,...

“Take the case mentioned by Chevreuil among scores of others. It is certain that the ‘sensitive’ experiences terror and anguish when any materialisation in which he or she has b...

There had come into Stuart’s voice a hint of anxiety in these days when he greeted Gilda over the telephone. It was always the same eager, boyish question: “Are you all right, d...

The Talkers were talking at the Fireside Club. The Talkers were talking of women. Fairless quoted Lombroso, Kraft-Ebbing, and Havelock-Ellis. Harry Stayr, who had been for years...

They had stopped for an hour at Heron Nest. She would not cross the threshold; but inspected the big, dowdy old mansion from every outside angle, and the poor boy pointed out to...

The signs were painted and erected by Mr. Hanford. One read: “Keep offn this here privut rode. Ladies presunt.” The other: “Don’t go into them woods; there is ladies loose.”

The hemlock wore its honey-pale tassels; the white pine its waxen candelabra; the spruce its tender terminals; the balsam was veiled in misty blue. June had begun magnificently...

‘--_Et quand, dernier témoin de ces scènes funèbres, Entouré du chaos, de la mort, des ténèbres, Seul, je serais debout; seul malgré mon effroi, Etre infaillible et bon, j’espér...

There were lights in both drawing-rooms when Stuart let in Gilda and himself with his latch-key. She let slip her evening wrap; he laid it on a chair by the console, with his ha...