The Project Gutenberg EBook of Audrey Craven, by May Sinclair

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Title: Audrey Craven

Author: May Sinclair

Release Date: August 23, 2009 [EBook #29766]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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AUDREY CRAVEN

BY

MAY SINCLAIR

AUTHOR OF "THE DIVINE FIRE," ETC.

"Made subject to vanity"

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1906

_AUTHOR'S EDITION_

_TO_

_MY MOTHER_

AUDREY CRAVEN

CHAPTER I

Everybody knew that Miss Audrey Craven was the original of "Laura," the
heroine of Langley Wyndham's masterpiece. She first attracted the
attention of that student of human nature at Oxford, at a dinner given
by her guardian, the Dean of St. Benedict's, ostensibly in honour of the
new Master of Lazarus, in reality for his ward's entertainment and
instruction in the bewildering art of life.

It was thunder-weather. Out of doors, a hot and sleepy air hung over the
city; indoors, the forecast was no less heavy and depressing. Not so,
however, to Miss Audrey Craven. The party was large and mixed; and to
the fresh, untutored mind of a tyro, this in itself was promising. The
Dean pursued the ruinous policy of being all things to all men; and
to-night, together with nonentities and Oxonians of European renown,
there was a sprinkling of celebrities from the outside world. Among
these were Mr. Langley Wyndham, the eminent novelist, and his friend
Mr. Percival Knowles, the critic who had helped him to his eminence.
Having collected these discordant elements around him, the Dean withdrew
from the unequal contest, and hovered, smiling ineffectually, on the
outskirts of his little chaos. Perhaps he tried to find comfort in a
conscience satisfied for a party spoiled. But for Audrey this wild
confusion was rich in possibility. However baffling to those officially
responsible, it offered a wider field for individual enterprise; and if
she did not possess that fine flow of animal spirits which sometimes
supports lesser minds under