Mr. Incoul’s Misadventure quotes

He felt toward Miss Barhyte as were she some poem in flesh that it would be pleasant to make his own. In her carriage as in her looks, he had seen that stamp of breeding which is coercive even to the dissolute.

In her eyes he had discerned that promise of delight which it is said the lost goddesses could convey; and at whose conveyance, the legend says, the minds of men were enraptured.

It was in this wise that he felt to her. Such exhilaration as she may have brought him was of the spirit, and being cold by nature and undemonstrative, her tears annoyed him. He would have had her impassive, as befitted her beauty.

“

It is not that I am cruel, it is that I am trying to do right.

And it is for you to aid me. I have been true to you, do not ask me now to be false to myself.”

… been ravenous for hours, so much so,” he added lightly, “that I have been trying to poison my hunger by thinking of the dishes that I dislike the most, beer soup, for instance, stewed snails, carp cooked in sweetmeats or unseasoned salads of cactus hearts.”

“I don’t know,” Mr. Incoul answered gravely. “I don’t know what we will have tonight. The dinner was ordered last week. They may have cooked it then.”

“Possibly they did. On a fiesta San Sebastián is impossible. There are seven thousand strangers here today and the accommodations are insufficient for a third of them.”

Half an hour later the entire party were seated at a table overlooking the Concha.

The sun had sunk into the ocean as though it were imbibing an immense blue syrup.

On either side of the bay rose miniature mountains, Orgullo and Igueldo tiara’d with fortresses and sloped with green. To the right in the distance was a great unfinished casino, and facing it, beneath Orgullo, was a cluster of white ascending villas.

“I dare say,” his friend answered, “but

I have never been able to take an interest in women of that class.

”

The carriage drew up before the main entrance. He felt for small money to pay the driver, but found nothing smaller than a louis. The driver, after a protracted fumbling, declared that in the matter of change he was not a bit better off.

Where is the cabman who was ever supplied?

Rather than waste words Mr. Incoul gave him the louis and the man drove off, delighted to find that the old trick was still in working order.

Where is the cabman who was ever supplied? Rather than waste words Mr. Incoul gave him the louis and the man drove off, delighted to find that the old trick was still in working order.

Mr. Incoul looked up again at his wife’s window, but during his parley with the driver the lights had been extinguished.

He entered the gate and opened the door with a key. The hall was dark; he found a match and lit it. On the stair was Lenox Leigh. The match flickered and went out, but through the open door the moon poured in.

The young man rubbed his hat as though uncertain what to do or say. At last he reached the door, “I am at the Grand, you know,” he hazarded.

“Yes, I know,” Mr. Incoul answered, “and I hope you are comfortable.”

Leigh passed out. Mr. Incoul closed and bolted the door behind him. For a moment he stood very still. Then turning, he ascended the stair.

In the dressing-rooms was running water, and each of the bedrooms was supplied with gas-fixtures. He touched one to see if it were in working order, and immediately the escaping ether assured him that it was.

He sniffed it with a feeling akin to pleasure.

One would have thought that since he left Madison Avenue he had not enjoyed such a treat. There was gas to be found in the dining-room, but the reception-rooms were furnished with lamps and candelabras. The bedrooms were on the floor above.

It was the perfection of artificial grace. Her features were not regular, but there was an expression in them that stirred the pulse. “Je suis l’Amour,” she seemed to say, and to add “prends garde à toi.”

As she crossed the room men moistened their lips, and when she had gone they found them still parched.

Mr. Incoul followed her with his eyes. She had not left him unimpressed, but his impression differed from that of his neighbors. In her face his shrewdness had discerned nothing but the animal and the greed of unsatiated appetites.

In spite of the bagou Mirette was not a Parisian. She was born in the provinces, at Orléans, and was wont to declare herself a lineal descendant of Joan of Arc. She lied with perfect composure; if reproached she curled her lips.

“Lies whiten the teeth,” she would say, an argument which it was impossible to refute.

Under the empire she would have been a success; under a republic she complained of the difficulty of making two ends meet.

Their coffers are considered inexhaustible. On this subject, thanks to Mrs. Mackay, Mr. Incoul, the Vanderbilts, the Astors and a dozen others, there is now no doubt in the mind of the French.

To be an American is to be a Vesuvius of gold pieces.

As a native of the land of millions, Lenox found that his earliest attentions were received with smiles, and in time when a Russian became so scratched that the Tartar was visible, Mirette welcomed him with undisguised favor.

He could not exculpate himself at the cost of a woman’s fame. Whichever way he turned, dishonor stood before him. The toils into which he had fallen had been woven with a cunning so devilish in its clairvoyance that every avenue of escape was closed.

He was blockaded in his own disgrace.

He rested his head in his hand, and moaned aloud. Presently, with the instinct of a hunted beast, he felt that people were looking at him.

Maida herself came to me like a revelation. She gave me a new conception of beauty. Yes, I have known very many pleasant hours. I was younger then, I fancy.

After all, it is not life that is short, it is youth.

When that goes, as mine seems to have done, outside of solitude there is little charm in anything. And what is death but isolation? The most perfect and impenetrable that Nature has devised.

“Do not say it,” the girl wailed; “do not say it.” The tears were falling, her form was rocked with sobs.

She was piteous before him who knew not what pity was.

He had risen and she crouched as though she feared he had risen to strike her.