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Literary AdventuresThis page will take you into pieces of literature that are carefully selected for their great content at the literary, scientific, or philosophical level. A short selection will be presented in full. A long one will be divided into sections that will be refreshed regularly. Emphasis and highlights are mostly ours, not made by the original author. Here is our current selection: Anna the Adventuress (1904) by E. Phillips OppenheimChapter 18. Annabel and "Alcide"Lady Ferringhall lifted her eyes to the newcomer, and the greeting in them was obviously meant for him alone. She continued to fan herself. " " She nodded. " Ennison glanced at the other people in the box and smiled. " " " Ennison laughed softly. " " " His fingers touched hers for a moment under the ledge of the box. " " " He leaned towards her. "Is that a challenge?" She shrugged her shoulders, all ablaze with jewels. "Why not? It might amuse me." Somewhat irrelevantly he glanced at the next few boxes where the rest of Mrs. Montressor's guests were. " " " She nodded. " " " " The small grey feathers of her exquisitely shaped fan waved gently backwards and forwards. She was watching him intently. " " She looked away. " " " " She looked at him doubtfully. " She was really like her sister he thought, impressed for a moment by the soft brilliancy of her smile. Her fingers rested upon his. " A little murmur of expectation, an audible silence announced the coming of "Alcide." Then a burst of applause. She was standing there, smiling at the audience as at her friends. From the first there had always been between her and her listeners that electrical sympathy which only a certain order of genius seems able to create. Then she sang. Ennison listened, and his eyes glowed. Lady Ferringhall listened, and her cheeks grew pale. Her whole face stiffened with suppressed anger. She forgot Anna's sacrifices, forgot her own callousness, forgot the burden which she had fastened upon her sister's shoulders. She was fiercely and bitterly jealous. Anna was singing as she used to sing. She was chic, distinguished, unusual. What right had she to call herself "Alcide"? It was abominable, an imposture. Ennison listened, and he forgot where he was. He forgot Annabel's idle attempts at love-making, all the cul-de-sac gallantry of the moment. The cultivated indifference, which was part of the armour of his little world fell away from him. He leaned forward, and looked into the eyes of the woman he loved, and it seemed to him that she sang back to him with a sudden note of something like passion breaking here and there through the gay mocking words which flowed with such effortless and seductive music from her lips. Neither of them joined in the applause which followed upon her exit. They were both conscious, however, that something had intervened between them. Their conversation became stilted. A spot of colour, brighter than any rouge, burned on her cheeks. " " "You too sing?" he asked. " " " " "Don't imperil my reputation before I am established," she answered, smiling. " " "Don't tempt me," she said, laughing, and drawing her opera-cloak together. " Again on his way homeward from Cavendish Square he abandoned the direct route to pass by the door of Anna's flat. Impassive by nature and training, he was conscious tonight of a strange sense of excitement, of exhilaration tempered by a dull background of disappointment. Her sister had told him that it was true. Anna was married. After all, she was a consummate actress. Her recent attitude towards him was undoubtedly a pose. His long struggle with himself, his avoidance of her were quite unnecessary. There was no longer any risk in association with her. His pulses beat fast as he walked, his feet fell lightly upon the pavement. He slackened his pace as he reached the flat. The windows were still darkened--perhaps she was not home yet. He lit a cigarette and loitered about. He laughed once or twice at himself as he paced backwards and forwards. He felt like a boy again, the taste for adventures was keen upon his palate, the whole undiscovered world of rhythmical things, of love and poetry and passion seemed again to him a real and actual place, and he himself an adventurer upon the threshold. Then a hansom drove up, and his heart gave a great leap. She stepped on to the pavement almost before him, and his blood turned almost to ice as he saw that she was not alone. A young man turned to pay the cabman. Then she saw him. "Mr. Ennison," she exclaimed, "is that really you?" There was no sign of embarrassment in her manner. She held out her hand frankly. She seemed honestly glad to see him. " He hesitated, and glanced towards her companion. He saw now that it was merely a boy. " " She led the way, talking all the time to Ennison. " " " It was a tiny little room, daintily furnished, individual in its quaint colouring, and the masses of perfumed flowers set in strange and unexpected places. A great bowl of scarlet carnations gleamed from a dark corner, set against the background of a deep brown wall. A jar of pink roses upon a tiny table seemed to gain an extra delicacy of colour from the sombre curtains behind. Anna, who had thrown aside her sealskin coat, wore a tight-fitting walking dress of some dark shade. He leaned back in a low chair, and watched her graceful movements, the play of her white hands as she bent over some wonderful machine. A woman indeed this to love and be loved, beautiful, graceful, gay. A dreamy sense of content crept over him. The ambitions of his life, and they were many, seemed to lie far away, broken up dreams in some outside world where the way was rough and the sky always grey. A little table covered with a damask cloth was dragged out. There were cakes and sandwiches--for Ennison a sort of Elysian feast, long to be remembered. They talked lightly and smoked cigarettes till Anna, with a little laugh, threw open the window and let in the cool night air. Ennison stood by her side. They looked out over the city, grim and silent now, for it was long past midnight. For a moment her thoughts led her back to the evening when she and Courtlaw had stood together before the window of her studio in Paris, before the coming of Sir John had made so many changes in her life. She was silent, the ghost of a fading smile passed from her lips. She had made her way since then a little further into the heart of life. Yet even now there were so many things untouched, so much to be learned. Tonight she had a curious feeling that she stood upon the threshold of some change. The great untrodden world was before her still, into which no one can pass alone. She felt a new warmth in her blood, a strange sense of elation crept over her. Sorrows and danger and disappointment she had known. Perhaps the day of her recompense was at hand. She glanced into her companion's face, and she saw there strange things. For a moment her heart seemed to stop beating. Then she dropped the curtain and stepped back into the room. Sydney was strumming over a new song which stood upon the piano. " " " |
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