Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: Greek Tragedy in the Light of Vase Paintings by Huddilston John H John Homer
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page
Ebook has 49 lines and 2804 words, and 1 pages
NELL VAN BUREN'S POINT OF VIEW
RUDOLPH BREDERODE'S POINT OF VIEW
PHYLLIS RIVERS' POINT OF VIEW
RONALD LESTER STARR'S POINT OF VIEW
Facing She absentmindedly dropped in three, while Page talking to Starr . . . . 168
We were called upon to part with almost all the gulden. . . . . . 20
"You need have no hesitation in giving the boat to me" . . . . . 24
We both exclaimed, "Oh, are you here?". . 42
There was a sudden stir in the garden . . 96
"It's black magic," said Aunt Fay . . 154
We stopped at Haarlem only long enough to do reverence to Franz Hals . . . 168
A couple of great yellow dogs, drawing a cart, swore canine oaths against the car . 196
Starr induced them to stand for him, though they were reluctant and self-conscious 216
I was glad to stoop down and pat Tibe . . 240
Solemn men inspecting burning globes, and bargaining with their possessors . 254
She looked, for all the world, like a beautiful Frisian girl . . . . . 288
It was Phyllis who shone at Liliendaal . 320
"Well--have I pleased you?" Freule Menela asked at last . . . . . 344
It was a ring for a lover to offer to his lady 352
At his present rate he would reach us in about two minutes . . . . . 388
THE CHAUFFEUR AND THE CHAPERON
NELL VAN BUREN'S POINT OF VIEW
Sometimes I think that having a bath is the nicest part of the day, especially if you take too long over it, when you ought to be hurrying.
Phyllis and I have no proper bath-room in our flat. What can you expect for forty pounds a year, even at Clapham? But we have a fitted-up arrangement in the box-room, and it has never exploded yet. Phyllis allows herself ten minutes for her bath every morning, just as she allows herself five minutes for her prayers, six to do her hair, and four for everything else, except when she wears laced-up boots; but then, she has principles, and I have none; at least, I have no maxims. And this morning, just because there were lots of things to do, I was luxuriating in the tub, thinking cool, delicious thoughts.
As a general rule, when you paint glorious pictures for yourself of your future as you would like it to be, it clouds your existence with gray afterwards, because the reality is duller by contrast; but it was different this morning. I had stopped awake all night thinking the same things, and I was no more tired of the thoughts now than when I first began.
I lay with my eyes shut, sniffing Eau de Cologne , and planning what a delightful future we would have.
Then I began to furnish the cottage and the house, and was putting up a purple curtain in a white marble bath-room with steps down to the bath, when a knock came at the door.
I knew it was Phil, for it could be nobody else; but it was as unlike Phil as possible--as unlike her as a mountain is unlike itself when it is having an eruption.
"Nell," she called outside the door. "Nell, darling! Are you ready?"
"Only just begun," I answered. "I shall be--oh, minutes and minutes yet. Why?"
"I don't want to worry you," replied Phil's creamy voice, with just a little of the cream skimmed off; "but--do make haste."
"Have you been cooking something nice for breakfast?"
"Have you spilt--or burnt it?"
"No; but there's nothing to rejoice over or celebrate, after all; at least, comparatively nothing."
"I can't stand here yelling such things at the top of my lungs."
Then I knew how dreadfully poor Phil was really upset, for her lovely voice was quite snappy; and I've always thought she would not snap on the rack or in boiling oil. As for me, my bath began to feel like that--boiling oil, I mean; and I splashed about anyhow, not caring whether I got my hair wet or not. Because, if we had to go on being poor after our great expectations, nothing could possibly matter, not even looking like a drowned rat.
"What mercies, as a matter of fact, remain to us?" I asked, trying to restore depressed spirits as well as circulation with a towel as harsh as fate.
"Two hundred pounds and a motor-boat."
"Yes. The pounds are for me, the boat for you. It seems you once unfortunately wrote a postcard, and told poor dear Captain Noble you envied him having it. It's said to be as good as new; so there's one comfort, you can sell it second-hand, and perhaps get as much money as he has left me."
I came very near falling down again in the bath with an awful splash, beneath the crushing weight of disappointment, and the soap slipping under my foot.
"Two hundred pounds and a motor-boat--instead of all those thousands!" I groaned--not very loudly; but Phil heard me through the door.
"Never mind, dearest," she called, striving, in that irritating way saints have, to be cheerful in spite of all. "It's better than nothing. We can invest it."
"Invest it!" I screamed. "What are two hundred pounds and a motor-boat when invested?"
"About twelve pounds a year."
"My darling girl, I hope you haven't gone out of your mind from the blow!" There was alarm and solicitude in Phil's accents. "When you've slipped on your dressing-gown and come out we'll talk things over."
"I hope I have the strength of mind to bear it," faltered Phyllis. "We've only had two days of hoping for better things."
"Dearest, I don't think this is a proper time for joking--and you in your bath, too," protested Phil, mildly.
With that, before she could give me an answer, I opened the door and walked out in my dressing-gown, so suddenly that she almost pitched forward into the bath. Phyllis, heard from behind a cold, unsympathetic door, and Phyllis seen in all her virginal Burne-Jones attractiveness, might as well be two different girls. If you carried on a conversation with Miss Rivers on ethics and conventionalities and curates, and things of that kind from behind a door, without having first peeped round to see what she was like, you would do the real Phil an injustice.
There is nothing pink and soft and dimpled about Phyllis's views of life (or, at least, what
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page