FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120  
121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   >>   >|  
state of stupefaction. "Of course," said Graham, "it is not worth while to notice that rag. Half of what it says is clearly a downright invention. If only you could get hold of the writer and thrash him, it might do some good; but these liars are very hard to catch. As to the 'other lady,' there is nothing in that, is there?" Both Graham and his wife looked anxiously at Walcott. They knew of his attentions to Lettice, and were jealous of him on that account; and they had been discussing with each other the possibility of their friend's name being dragged into a scandal. Walcott was livid with rage. "The cur!" he cried; "the lying hound! He has entirely fabricated the beginning and the end of this paragraph. There is no ground whatever for saying that a case may come into court. There is no 'lady in the case' at all. He has simply put on that tag to make his scrap of gossip worth another half-crown. Is it not abominable, Graham?" "It is something more than abominable. To my mind this sort of thing is one of the worst scandals of the present day. But I felt sure there was nothing in it, and the few who guess that it refers to you will draw the same conclusion. Don't think any more about it!" "A lie sticks when it is well told," said Walcott, gloomily. "There are plenty of men who would rather believe it than the uninteresting truth." But the Grahams, relieved on the point that mainly concerned them, could not see much gravity in the rest of the concoction, and Walcott had scant pity from them. He went home disconsolate, little dreaming of the reception which awaited him there. He occupied a floor in Montagu Place, Bloomsbury, consisting of three rooms: a drawing-room, a bed-room, and a small study; and, latterly, Mrs. Bundlecombe, whose acquaintance the reader has already made, had used a bed-room at the top of the house. Alan's mother and Mrs. Bundlecombe had been sisters. They were the daughters of a well-to-do farmer in Essex, and, as will often happen with sisters of the same family, brought up and cared for in a precisely similar way, they had exhibited a marked contrast in intellect, habits of thought, and outward bearing. The one had absorbed the natural refinement of her mother, who had come of an old Huguenot family long ago settled on English soil; the other was moulded in the robust and coarse type of her father. Bessy was by preference the household factotum not to say the drudge of the fa
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120  
121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Walcott

 

Graham

 

abominable

 

Bundlecombe

 

mother

 
sisters
 

family

 

plenty

 

relieved

 
gloomily

consisting

 
drawing
 

uninteresting

 

Grahams

 

concoction

 

dreaming

 

disconsolate

 

reception

 

gravity

 

occupied


Montagu

 

awaited

 

concerned

 

Bloomsbury

 

Huguenot

 

settled

 

English

 

bearing

 

outward

 

absorbed


natural

 
refinement
 

moulded

 

factotum

 

household

 
drudge
 

preference

 

coarse

 

robust

 

father


thought

 

habits

 

daughters

 

farmer

 

acquaintance

 

reader

 
exhibited
 

marked

 

contrast

 

intellect