Sport Royal and other stories by Anthony Hope

Author:Anthony Hope [Hope, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-09-07T04:00:00+00:00

I think parents are the most infatuated class of persons in the community. They laughed, and Mrs. Gunton said, “How clever of you, Addie! You must forgive her, Mr. Miller. My dear girls are so playful!”

Playful! And she never returned the five-pound note!

* * *

A GUARDIAN OF MORALITY.

M

Miss Tabitha Grey had not reached the age of forty-five years without acquiring an extensive and unfavorable knowledge of her sex. Men were wicked; Miss Grey admitted and deplored the fact, but it was so much in the order of nature that she had almost ceased to cavil at it. But that women should be wicked! Here Miss Grey’s toleration gave out. And so many women, especially young women, and more especially pretty young women, were wicked. It was atrocious! Entertaining this general opinion, Miss Grey, as a matter of course, held Maggie Lester in the utmost detestation. The Waterfall Hotel was, in fact, hardly large enough to contain, in any comfort, Miss Grey on the one hand and on the other Maggie Lester, her brother Charles, and their friend and traveling companion. Captain Petrie. It is true that the feeling of discomfort was entirely confined to Miss Grey. The young people were very civil to her when any one of them happened to be next her at table d’hôte, and at other times thought nothing about her; but Miss Grey endured agonies enough for an hotelful of people. She shuddered at Maggie’s striped waistcoat and white sailor’s knot with its golden pin, at her brown boots, at her love of long and hard rides, at her not infrequent slang; above all, at the terms of hearty and familiar camaraderie on which she thought fit to conduct her acquaintance with Captain Petrie. The decorum of literature forbids that Miss Grey’s inmost suspicions should be put in writing; it must suffice to say that they were very dark indeed—so dark that all the other ladies, to whom Miss Grey repeated them, could not but come to the conclusion that there must be some truth in them.

One morning, after breakfast, Miss Grey took her knitting and the Church Times and sat down in the veranda. A moment later, to her disgust, Charlie Lester and Captain Petrie came out of the breakfast room, lit their pipes, and, after a polite “Good-morning,” took their seats a few yards from her. Miss Grey sniffed the tobacco-tainted air, and was about to rise and ostentatiously remove herself from the infected zone, when she heard a scrap of conversation between the two young men which entirely altered her determination. She sat still and listened with all her might.

“I wonder when Maggie will be down,” said Lester; “I want to tell her.”

“Oh, you’re too late,” said Petrie; “I’ve told her.”

“What, have you seen her?”

“Yes. I knew she’d like to know, so I went outside her door five minutes ago and shouted what we’d heard, and she came out directly.”

“Had she anything on?” inquired Lester, in an interested tone.

“No,” responded Captain Petrie; “but that made no difference.

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