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29 chapters
The Luck of the Vails.
The Luck of the Vails.
12mo. Cloth, $1.50. This romance of modern life is characterized by intense and culminating interest and remarkable dramatic power. The reader's attention is absorbed at the outset, and he is held in suspense to the last of these vivid and fascinating pages....
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Mammon and Co.
Mammon and Co.
This novel by a popular author deals with personages living in the same society that was characterized by "Dodo" and "The Rubicon." Mr. Benson is thoroughly acquainted with the society in which he places the scenes of his novels of London life. In "Mammon & Co." the good genius of the tale is an American girl. The book will be found to be one of exceeding interest throughout....
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Dodo.
Dodo.
A Detail of the Day. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents. "'Dodo' is a delightfully witty sketch of the 'smart' people of society.... The writer is a true artist."— London Spectator. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents. "The anticipations which must have been formed by all readers of 'Dodo' will in no wise be disappointed by 'The Rubicon.' The new work is well written, stimulating, unconventional, and, in a word, characteristic. Intellectual force is never absent, and the keen observation and kn
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A NOVEL
A NOVEL
Copyright , 1901, By D. APPLETON and COMPANY....
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THE SHADOWS DANCE
THE SHADOWS DANCE
The short winter's day was drawing to its close, and twilight, the steel and silver twilight of a windless frost, falling in throbs of clear dusk over an ice-bound land. The sun, brilliant but cold as an electric lamp, had not in all the hours of its shining been of strength sufficient to melt the rime congealed during the night before, and each blade of grass on the lawns, each spray and sprig on the bare hedgerows, had remained a spear of crystals minute and innumerable. The roofs of house and
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THE COMING OF THE LUCK
THE COMING OF THE LUCK
The dining room at Vail was of the same antique spaciousness as the hall, and, as there on the lounger, so here on the diner, looked down a spacious company of ancestors. For so small a party it had been thought by the butler that conviviality would be given a better chance if, on this frosty night, he laid them a small table within range of the fire rather than that the three should be cut off, as it were, on a polar island in the centre of that vast sea of floor. And, indeed, though naturally
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THE SPELL BEGINS TO WORK
THE SPELL BEGINS TO WORK
Mr. Francis was by choice an early riser, and next morning, before either of the young men were awake, he had been splashing and gasping in his cold tub, had felt with the keenest enjoyment the genial afterglow produced on his braced and invigorated skin by the application of the rough towel, and was now out on the terrace, pacing briskly along the dry gravel walk on this adorable winter morning, waiting cheerfully for his desired breakfast. Now and then he would break into a nimble trot for fif
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THE STORY OF MR. FRANCIS
THE STORY OF MR. FRANCIS
Harry Vail owned a plain, gloomy house in Cavendish Square, forbidding to those who looked at it from the street, chilling to those who looked at the street from it. It was furnished in the heavy and expensive early Victorian style, and solid mahogany frowned at its inmates. During his minority it had been let for a term of years, but on his coming of age he had taken it again himself, and here, when the gloom and darkness of February and swollen waters made Vail more suitable for the amphibious
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A POINT IN CASUISTRY
A POINT IN CASUISTRY
One evening, toward the end of June, Lady Oxted was driving home from Victoria Station, where she had gone to meet the arrival of the Continental express. By her side sat a girl of little more than twenty, who, by the eager, questioning glances which she cast at that inimitable kaleidoscope of life as seen in the London streets, must probably have been deprived of this admirable spectacle for some time, for her gaze was quickened to an interest not habitual to Londoners, however deep is their de
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THE POINT SOLVED—THE MEETING
THE POINT SOLVED—THE MEETING
Dinner was over, and of Lady Oxted's party there only remained by eleven o'clock but a couple of her guests. There was a ball at one house, an evening party at another, a concert at a third, and each claimed its grilling quota, leaving even at this hour only Harry Vail and Geoffrey Langham. Lord Oxted, as was his wont, had retired to his study, as soon as his duties as host would permit, without positively violating decency, but the two young men still lingered, making an intimate party. During
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THE POINT IN CASUISTRY SOLVES ITSELF
THE POINT IN CASUISTRY SOLVES ITSELF
Lady Oxted always breakfasted in her own room, and before she appeared next morning she had spent a long hour in wrestling over her letter to Mrs. Aylwin. She had been desirous to tell the unvarnished truth, and yet to steer clear of a production by a demented matchmaker, and her letter, it must be confessed, was an admirable performance. Evie had told her, so she wrote, of her mother's refusal to let her know the name of the man at whose door she laid, or used to lay, Harold's death, and, takin
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THE SECOND RETURN TO VAIL
THE SECOND RETURN TO VAIL
It was the day following Lady Oxted's return to London from the Sunday in the country that she received the expected letter from Mrs. Aylwin, in answer to her own. The opening of it, it would be idle to deny, was made with an anxious and apprehensive hand. Already it was plain to her with how swift and strong a movement, as of flood water hastening toward sluice-gates, the first attraction between the two was speeding into intimacy; and had she known what had passed between them in the orchard,
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CARDIAC
CARDIAC
Mr. Francis soon joined him for tea, and, after proposing a stroll in ten minutes' time, had gone to his room to answer an urgent letter. Harry was well content to wait, for nothing could come amiss to a mood so harmonious as his, and, lighting a cigarette, he strolled round the walls, beholding his forbears. Opposite the portrait of old Francis, second baron, he stood long, and his eye sought and dwelt on the Luck as a familiar object. The sun, streaming through the western windows, fell full o
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MR. FRANCIS IS BETTER
MR. FRANCIS IS BETTER
The cheerful optimism of Sanders was borne out by events, if not in letter at any rate in spirit, and Harry, on waking, received the most encouraging reports from the sick-room. Mr. Francis had slept well for the greater part of the night, and though he would take his breakfast in bed, he expected to be down by the middle of the morning. He particularly desired that Harry should be told, as soon as he woke, how completely he had recovered from his attack, and sent him his dear love. Here, at any
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MR. FRANCIS SEES HIS DOCTOR
MR. FRANCIS SEES HIS DOCTOR
Harry had held long sessions in his mind as to whether he should or should not ask other people to Vail to meet Lady Oxted and Miss Aylwin at the end of the month. It was but a thin hospitality, he was afraid, to bring two ladies down to Wiltshire to spend a country Sunday, and provide for their entertainment only the society of himself and his uncle; and this fear gradually deepening to certainty, he hurriedly asked four or five other guests, only two days before the projected visit, in revolt
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THE MEETING IN THE WOOD
THE MEETING IN THE WOOD
The two ladies were to arrive about tea time next day, and, as the hour drew on, a lively restlessness got hold of Harry. He could neither sit, nor stand, nor read, but after a paragraph of a page, the meaning of which slipped from his mind even as his eyes hurried over the lines, he would be off on an aimless excursion to the dining room, forget what he had gone about, and return with the same haste to his book. Then he would remember that he wanted the table to-night in the centre of the room,
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HARRY ASKS A QUESTION
HARRY ASKS A QUESTION
Harry was leaving next morning with the two women, being unable to induce Lady Oxted to stop another day, and in consequence he sat up late that night after they had gone to bed, looking over the details of the expense of putting in the electric light. The cheapest plan, it appeared, would be to utilize the power supplied by the fall of water from the lake, for this would save the cost of engines to drive the dynamos. In this case it would be necessary to build the house for them over the sluice
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LADY OXTED'S IDEA
LADY OXTED'S IDEA
Lady Oxted, in spite of her husband's general reflections upon her character, could not reasonably be called an ungenerous woman; and when, ten days after these last occurrences, it was her painful duty to visit the convalescent sofa of Geoffrey Langham, she said without circumlocution, or any attempt to shirk due responsibility, that she supposed it was she from whom he had caught the influenza. Geoffrey, on his side, did not regard this as anything but a certain conclusion, but added, with the
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FROST
FROST
Harry left London at the end of the month, paid a couple of visits in England, then went to Scotland for the remainder of August, and loitered there, since he was at the same two houses as Evie till September had reached its second decade of days, and then travelled south again with her. She was on her way straight to Santa Margarita to spend the remainder of the month of months with her mother, and Harry saw her off by the boat express from Victoria, she having sternly and absolutely refused to
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FIRE
FIRE
Harry was in the most extravagantly high spirits this morning, and at breakfast the two laughed over the most indifferent trivialities like schoolboys. Stories without wit and of the bluntest kind of point, rude personal remarks, repartees of the most obvious and futile kind, were enough to make one or other, and usually both, fit to choke with meaningless laughter. To Geoffrey, at least, there was great and conscious cause for a mounting spiritual barometer in the departure of Mr. Francis. All
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A BIRD OF NIGHT
A BIRD OF NIGHT
For a moment neither spoke. "Dear boy, how late you sit up!" said Mr. Francis, coming into the room; "it has already struck one. You were asleep, I think, when I came in, and I was unwilling to awake you. But now tell me, is Harry all right?" Geoffrey by this time had every sense alert: he felt perfectly cool and collected, and saw his policy stretching away in front of him like a level, well-defined road. "Yes, Harry, by a miracle almost, is alive and unhurt," he said. "Ah! I knew it, I knew it
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RAIN
RAIN
Two mornings after this discovery of the passage, as they were sitting at breakfast, a telegram was brought in for Harry. "Brougham to meet the evening train," he said to the man, after reading it, "and tell them to get Mr. Francis's rooms ready." "He comes to-night?" asked Geoffrey. "Yes; I did not expect him so soon. But he is only coming for a couple of days, he says. He has taken the flat in Wimpole Street; I suppose he means to go back there." "What is he coming here for?" "Can't say—to get
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GEOFFREY LEAVES VAIL
GEOFFREY LEAVES VAIL
Geoffrey went slowly downstairs, reciting to himself exactly all he knew. One point was salient: Mr. Francis had certainly seen the broken sluice. And he entered the hall. Mr. Francis had taken off his waterproof, and was sitting comfortably in a chair. He looked up with his cheery smile when Geoffrey came in. "Ah! my dear boy," he said, "you were quite right not to come out. The weather was odious; I have never seen such rain. But one feels better, after all, for a breath of air." "I preferred
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DR. ARMYTAGE ARRIVES
DR. ARMYTAGE ARRIVES
Dr. Armytage, for whom Harry had telegraphed, arrived about nine that night. He had left London immediately on receipt of the summons without dining, and having seen his patient, came downstairs to join Harry in a belated meal. In appearance he was a dark man and spare, his chin and upper lip blue-black from a strong crop of hair close shaven; heavy eyebrows nearly met over his aquiline nose; his mouth had a certain secrecy and tightness about it. But his manner was that of a man reserved but co
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GEOFFREY MEETS THE DOCTOR
GEOFFREY MEETS THE DOCTOR
Dr. Armytage, despite Lady Oxted's round and uncompromising definition of him as a dexterous surgeon of sinister repute, proved himself during the next day or two to be far more intimately acquainted with the vital structure of the animal called man than is at all necessary for one who only concerns himself with dissection of artery and muscle, and the severing of bones. Under his wise and beneficent care Mr. Francis rapidly rose again to his accustomed surface, and, no less testimony to his ski
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LADY OXTED HAS A BAD NIGHT
LADY OXTED HAS A BAD NIGHT
Harry was sitting cross-legged on the hearth rug after dinner, poking the fire in an idiotic manner with the tongs. Gun cotton would have smouldered out under so illiterate a stroke. He was also talking with about equal vivacity and vacuity to Lady Oxted and Evie, but while his conversation was not more than difficult to bear, his poking of the fire was quite intolerable. Lady Oxted got swiftly and silently up from her chair, and, in the manner of a stooping hawk, took the instrument from him. "
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THE MEETING IN GROSVENOR SQUARE
THE MEETING IN GROSVENOR SQUARE
The doctor entered with the brusqueness of a man who had no knowledge of, or at any rate no regard for, the usages of polite society. He treated Lady Oxted to little more than his profile and an imperceptible pause, which indulgence might construe into a bow, then walked straight up to Geoffrey, with a face businesslike, concentrated. "I had important information," he said, "which I was desirous of telling you without delay. My hansom is waiting." Geoffrey felt his heart thump riotously, a heavy
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JIM GOES TO BED
JIM GOES TO BED
Geoffrey, in spite of, or perhaps owing to his anxieties, slept long and late, and it was already after ten when he came half dressed from his bedroom to the adjoining sitting room, in quest of letters. But there was no word either from Dr. Armytage or Lady Oxted, and here no news was distinctly good news. No fresh complication had arisen; Harry, it might be certainly assumed, was safe at Oxted, Mr. Francis, as certainly, at Vail, though his safety was a matter of infinitesimal moment. Yet, in s
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MR. FRANCIS SLEEPS
MR. FRANCIS SLEEPS
It was about a quarter past eight when Geoffrey left Jim in the secret passage, and, in accordance with his instructions, went back to the box hedge where he had concealed the rifle and cartridges. With these he skirted wide up the short grassy slope that led to the summerhouse, and trying the door, found it unlocked. It stood, as he had supposed, some fifteen feet above the level of the mist that lay round the house below, and was admirably situated for the observation of any movement or manœuv
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