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Chapters (28)
  1. A LADY OF QUALITY
  2. *
  3. Contents
  4. A Lady of Quality
  5. Chapter I - The Twenty-Fourth Day of November 1690
  6. Chapter II - In Which Sir Jeoffry Encounters His Offspring
  7. Chapter III - Wherein Sir Jeoffry's Boon Companions Drink a Toast
  8. Chapter IV - Lord Twemlow's Chaplain Visits His Patron's Kinsman, and Mistress Clorinda Shines on Her Birthday Night
  9. Chapter V - "Not I," Said She "there Thou Mayst Trust Me I Would Not Be Found Out"
  10. Chapter VI - Relating How Mistress Anne Discovered a Miniature
  11. Chapter VII - 'Twas the Face of Sir John Oxon the Moon Shone Upon
  12. Chapter VIII - Two Meet in the Deserted Rose Garden, and the Old Earl of Dunstanwolde is Made a Happy Man
  13. Chapter IX - "I Give to Him the Thing He Craves with All His Soul—Myself"
  14. Chapter X - "Yes—I Have Marked Him"
  15. Chapter XI - Wherein a Noble Life Comes to an End
  16. Chapter XII - Which Treats of the Obsequies of My Lord of Dunstanwolde, of His Lady's Widowhood, and of Her Return to Town
  17. Chapter XIII - Wherein a Deadly War Begins
  18. Chapter XIV - Containing the History of the Breaking of the Horse Devil, and Relates the Returning of His Grace of Osmonde from France
  19. Chapter XV - In Which Sir John Oxon Finds Again a Trophy He Had Lost
  20. Chapter XVI - Dealing with that Which was Done in the Panelled Parlour
  21. Chapter XVII - Wherein His Grace of Osmonde's Courier Arrives from France
  22. Chapter XVIII - My Lady Dunstanwolde Sits Late Alone and Writes
  23. Chapter XIX - A Piteous Story is Told, and the Old Cellars Walled In
  24. Chapter XX - A Noble Marriage
  25. Chapter XXI - An Heir is Born
  26. Chapter XXII - Mother Anne
  27. Chapter XXIII - "In One Who Will Do Justice, and Demands that it Shall Be Done to Each Thing He Has Made, by Each Who Bears His Image"
  28. Chapter XXIV - The Doves Sate Upon the Window-Ledge and Lowly Cooed and Cooed

"Hark you, sister Anne," she said. "I read you better than you think. You are a poor thing, but you love me and—in my fashion—I think I love you somewhat too. You think I should not marry a gentleman whom you fancy I do not love as I might a younger, handsomer man. You are full of love, and spinster dreams of it which make you flighty. I love my Lord of Dunstanwolde as well as any other man, and better than some, for I do not hate him. He has a fine estate, and is a gentleman—and worships me. Since I have been promised to him, I own I have for a moment seen another gentleman who might—but 'twas but for a moment, and 'tis done with. 'Twas too late then. If we had met two years agone 'twould not have been so. My Lord Dunstanwolde gives to me wealth, and rank, and life at Court. I give to him the thing he craves with all his soul—myself. It is an honest bargain, and I shall bear my part of it with honesty. I have no virtues—where should I have got them from, forsooth, in a life like mine? I mean I have no women's virtues; but I have one that is sometimes—not always—a man's. 'Tis that I am not a coward and a trickster, and keep my word when 'tis given. You fear that I shall lead my lord a bitter life of it. 'Twill not be so. He shall live smoothly, and not suffer from me. What he has paid for he shall honestly have. I will not cheat him as weaker women do their husbands; for he pays—poor gentleman—he pays."

And then, still looking at the glass, she pointed to the doorway through which her sister had come, and in obedience to her gesture of command, Mistress Anne stole silently away.

Chapter X - "Yes—I Have Marked Him"

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Through the brilliant, happy year succeeding to his marriage my Lord of Dunstanwolde lived like a man who dreams a blissful dream and knows it is one.

"I feel," he said to his lady, "as if 'twere too great rapture to last, and yet what end could come, unless you ceased to be kind to me; and, in truth, I feel that you are too noble above all other women to change, unless I were more unworthy than I could ever be since you are mine."