The Woman with the Fan

The butler went out, and Lady Holme’s maid put a long black cloak carefully over her mistress’s shoulders. While she did this Lady Holme stood quite still gazing into vacancy. T...

THE Charity Concert was to be given in Manchester House, one of the private palaces of London, and as Royalty had promised to be present, all the tickets were quickly sold. Amon...

AS Lady Holme had foreseen, the impertinent mimicry of Miss Schley concentrated a great deal of attention upon the woman mimicked. Many people, accepting the American’s cleverne...

ON the following day, which was warm and damp; Lady Holme drove to Bond Street, bought two new hats, had her hand read by a palmist who called himself “Cupido,” looked in at a l...

ROBIN had gone. He had gone, still protesting that Lady Holme was deceiving herself, protesting desperately, with the mistaken chivalry of one who was not only a gentleman to hi...

LORD HOLME seldom went to parties and never to private views. He thought such things “all damned rot.” Few functions connected with the arts appealed to his frankly Philistine s...

LADY HOLME never forgot that first evening at Casa Felice. The strangeness of it was greater than the strangeness of any nightmare. When she was shut up in her bedroom in London...

MRS. WOLFSTEIN was right. There was money in Miss Schley’s performance. Her sly impropriety appealed with extraordinary force to the peculiar respectability characteristic of th...

THE Ulfords accepted for the first. Lady Holme left cards on Mrs. Leo and told her husband that the box was filled up. He received the information with indifference. So long as...

THE success of Pimpernel Schley in London was great and immediate, and preceded her appearance upon the stage. To some people, who thought they knew their London, it was inexpli...

IN a large and cool drawing-room of London a few people were scattered about, listening to a soprano voice that was singing to the accompaniment of a piano. The sound of the voi...

SHE sat still without saying anything. It seemed to her as if she were on the platform at Manchester House singing the Italian song. Then the disfigured face of Carey--disfigure...

They set out slowly. It was early in the year. Showers of rain had fallen during the day. The night was warm, and the damp earth in the Square garden steamed as if it were oppre...

AFTER that night Lady Holme began to do something she had never done before--to idealise her husband. Hitherto she had loved him without weaving pretty fancies round him, loved...

IN the morning Lord Holme woke very late and in a different humour. Lady Holme was already up, sitting by a little table and pouring out tea, when he stretched himself, yawned,...

WHEN the last guest had grimaced at her and left the drawing-room, Lady Holme stood with her hand on the mantelpiece, facing a tall mirror. She was alone for the moment. Her hus...

BEFORE she had time to leave the window she heard a step in the room. She turned and saw Leo Ulford, smiling broadly--like a great boy--and holding up the latch-key she had sent...

ROBIN PIERCE and Carey were old acquaintances, if not exactly old friends. They had been for a time at Harrow together. Pierce had six thousand a year and worked hard for a few...

DESPAIR had driven Lady Holme to Casa Felice. When she had found that the accident had disfigured her frightfully, and that the disfigurement would be permanent, she had at firs...

ON a warm but overcast day, at the end of the following September, a woman, whose face was completely hidden by a thick black veil, drove up to the boat landing of the town of C...

ON the following morning the newspapers contained an account of the concert at Manchester House. They contained also an account of a motor accident which had occurred the same a...