Grey Roses. Harland Henry

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066227593

Table of Contents

       THE BOHEMIAN GIRL

       I.

       II.

       III.

       IV.

       V.

       VI.

       VII.

       VIII.

       IX.

       X.

       XI.

       XII.

       MERCEDES

       A BROKEN LOOKING-GLASS

       THE REWARD OF VIRTUE

       A RE-INCARNATION

       FLOWER O' THE QUINCE

       I.

       II.

       III.

       IV.

       WHEN I AM KING

       A RESPONSIBILITY

       CASTLES NEAR SPAIN

       I.

       II.

       III.

       IV.

       V.

       VI.

       VII.

       VIII.

       IX.

       X.

       XI.

       XII.

       XIII.

       XIV.

       XV.

THE BOHEMIAN GIRL

       Table of Contents

I.

       Table of Contents

      I woke up very gradually this morning, and it took me a little while to bethink myself where I had slept—that it had not been in my own room in the Cromwell Road. I lay a-bed, with eyes half-closed, drowsily look looking forward to the usual procession of sober-hued London hours, and, for the moment, quite forgot the journey of yesterday, and how it had left me in Paris, a guest in the smart new house of my old friend, Nina Childe. Indeed, it was not until somebody tapped on my door, and I roused myself to call out 'Come in,' that I noticed the strangeness of the wall-paper, and then, after an instant of perplexity, suddenly remembered. Oh, with a wonderful lightening of the spirit, I can tell you.

      A white-capped, brisk young woman, with a fresh-coloured, wholesome peasant face, came in, bearing a tray—Jeanne, Nina's femme-de-chambre.

      'Bonjour, monsieur,' she cried cheerily. 'I bring monsieur his coffee.' And her announcement was followed by a fragrance—the softly-sung response of the coffee-sprite. Her tray, with its pretty freight of silver and linen, primrose butter, and gently-browned pain-de-gruau, she set down on the table at my elbow; then she crossed the room and drew back the window-curtains, making the rings tinkle crisply on the metal rods, and letting in a gush of dazzling sunshine. From where I lay I could see the house-fronts opposite glow pearly-grey in shadow, and the crest of the slate roofs sharply print itself on the sky, like a black line on a sheet of scintillant blue velvet. Yet, a few minutes ago, I had been fancying myself in the Cromwell Road.

      Jeanne, gathering up my scattered garments, to take them off and brush them, inquired, by the way, if monsieur had passed a comfortable night.

      'As the chambermaid makes your bed, so must you lie in it,' I answered. 'And you know whether my bed was smoothly made.'

      Jeanne smiled indulgently. But her next remark—did it imply that she found me rusty? 'Here's a long time that you haven't been in Paris.'

      'Yes,' I admitted; 'not