CHAPTER I "If one consciously and deliberately desires happiness on this plane," said the Russian, "one must have sufficient strength of will to banish all thought. The moment that one begins to probe the meaning of things, one has opened Pandora's box and it may be many lives before one discovers hope lying at the bottom of it." "What do you mean by thought? How can one not... more...

CHAPTER I Outside one of the park gates there was a little house. In the prosperous days of the La Sarthe it had been the land steward's—but when there was no longer any land to steward it had gone with the rest, and for several years had been uninhabited. One day in early spring Halcyone saw smoke coming out of the chimney. This was too interesting a fact not to be investigated; she resented... more...

CHAPTER I Michael Arranstoun folded a letter which he had been reading for the seventh time, with a vicious intentness, and then jumping up from the big leather chair in which he had been buried, he said aloud, "Damn!" When a young, rich and good-looking man says that particular word aloud with a fearful grind of the teeth, one may know that he is in the very devil of a temper! Michael... more...

CHAPTER I t was Springtime in Switzerland! Once more the snow-capped mountains mirrored their proud heads in sapphire lakes; and on the beeches by the banks of Lake Lucerne green buds were bursting into leaves. Everywhere were bright signs of the earth's awakening. Springtime in Switzerland! And that, you know—you young hearts to whom the gods are kind—is only another way of saying Paradise!... more...

I February, 1918. I am sick of my life—The war has robbed it of all that a young man can find of joy. I look at my mutilated face before I replace the black patch over the left eye, and I realize that, with my crooked shoulder, and the leg gone from the right knee downwards, that no woman can feel emotion for me again in this world. So be it—I must be a philosopher. Mercifully I have no near... more...

RED HAIRBranches Park,November 3. I wonder so much if it is amusing to be an adventuress, because that is evidently what I shall become now. I read in a book all about it; it is being nice looking and having nothing to live on, and getting a pleasant time out of life—and I intend to do that! I have certainly nothing to live on, for one cannot count £300 a year; and I am extremely pretty, and I know... more...