Talk to me, Richard. It isn’t difficult. Move the teeth and agitate the tongue. Tell me news of the family. Am I superseded yet? Oh, Richard, a blush!
Tais-toi. Your glove. Madame Erskine, procure me a large pin,’ said the Queen Dowager of Scotland. ‘I have yet to meet a man who can lay hands on a pin when there is need for it.
Sybilla said, ‘I wish you would explain something you said. That there was something formidable in that household of Sevigny?’‘Ah,’ said Piero Strozzi. ‘It does not lend itself truly to words. But you...
Sybilla said, her voice grating again, ‘I know, of course, you would rather be dead.’He gave it a little thought. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you want to be here in this room either.
So small a spirit, to lodge such sorrows as mankind has brought you. Live … live.… Wait for me, new, frightened soul. And though the world should reel to a puny death, and the wolves are appointed our...
So Philippa got her leave to bring Archie Abernethy with her and sail on the Dauphiné. But they had not seen the woman Marthe before they left Lyons. And permission to sail from Marseilles depended st...
She told me one night that she had no wish to go on living, and that if she did, it could only harm you. She was thirteen years old.… Can you not stand still, and look me in the face, and give me an a...
She said, on a spurt of unusual temper, ‘If you say I look hot once again, I shall die of boredom, I think.’‘Don’t die,’ said Lymond pleasantly; and swinging into his own saddle, gathered the reins. ‘...
She said peevishly, ‘Do you consider I’m old enough to stop calling you Mr Crawford?’‘No,’ said Mr Crawford shortly. ‘What alternatives would you suggest? Master? Uncle?’‘That would certainly unsettle...
She had grown. Kate's vicious friend, once so elevated, was taller by little more than a head. She drew her brows together, and studied the circles under his eyes. He said lightly, 'My dear girl; it's...
Scott, deaf and enchanted in the gallery, and the whole row of pretty heads at his side saw the concerted rush on Lymond: his assailants downed him without malice and eighteen stones of Molly planted...
Quel changement, Strozzi had said, and it was true. The change was there, and not only in the chamois and lawn, replacing the velvet, the rubies, the gold tissue. It was as if all about him had been s...
Put him, blindfold, into a closed room anywhere in the world, and he could tell if Sybilla was with him. It had to do, perhaps, with her scent. To him, it was more: a breath from the sweetness and pea...
Piero Strozzi and Francis Crawford looked at one another. ‘A hint,’ said Lymond, ‘sufficeth for the wise, but a thousand speeches profit not the heedless. Did you hear what she said?’‘Unfortunately,’...
Patriotism, said Lymond again. It’s an opulent word, a mighty key to a royal Cloud-Cuckoo-Land. Patriotism; loyalty; a true conviction that of all the troubled and striving world, the soil of one’s fa...
Our motive in locking it, if it matters, was to spare you the embarrassment of an interruption. Unless the comte de Sevigny of today is really so different from the Master of Culter of ten years ago?’...
Only common mortals like the Somervilles have good old rotten hates, dear,’ said her mother. ‘Sir Graham manages to love everybody and wouldn’t know what you’re talking about. Have a bun.’ ‘He doesn’t...
Oh, ye’ve a temper,’ said Archie consideringly. ‘And ye had a rare old time losing it, and ye were like enough justified at that. But take a thought, too. Are ye to accuse Graham Malett in the law cou...
Of all the homes I have known, yours has been a shining model of wisdom and kindness and honesty. For what you and your mother have done in the past, for me and for the child, I owe you a profound deb...
Now his response was merely to detach himself from personal contact. Looking back, she could not remember a conversation veering on the intimate from which he had not withdrawn immediately. He had had...