Ladies Whose Bright Eyes

"Towered cities please us then And the busy haunts of men, Where throngs of knights and barons bold In weeds of peace high triumphs hold, With store of ladies whose bright eyes Rain influence and judge the prize."--L Allegro. *** a excerpt from PART I: LADIES WHOSE BRIGHT EYES I MR. SORRELL stepped out into the swaying corridor from the carriage into which he had gallantly accompanied Mrs. Lee-Egerton. He wanted to smoke a cigar and, now that he was off the boat, he wanted in cold blood to reflect as to whether he had not made a fool of himself The carriage was swaying tremendously, the train travelling at an unheard-of speed, and this speed pleased Mr. Sorrell. He felt, if he were not responsible for it, he was at least a friend of its author, Mr. Makover, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Indeed, he himself had gone with the Pennsylvanian to interview the driver. The millionaire had promised the mechanic a ten-pound note if he would get them up to town in time to dress, dine, and go to the Empire before the ballet began. And in the speed at which they travelled Mr. Sorrell took a personal pride. You cannot, as a rule, do much with trains, but he himself had had a hand in this acceleration. His left shoulder struck with violence the outer window; his right pained him considerably when it hit a brass hand-rail of the inner one. "Oh, steady!" Mr. Sorrell exclaimed. He was bending down to peer into the carriages in order to discover one in which he could smoke, when his eyes hit upon the broad expanse of spotless white of a nun's large head-dress, and at the same moment he was once more thrown so violently against the glass of the outer window that, for a moment, he experienced a feeling of panic at the thought that he had just missed breaking it and going clean through. "Oh, I say!" he exclaimed. "This won't do." He set his feet hard against the outer wall of the corridor and his shoulders against the inner. Decidedly he was going to smoke, and equally decidedly he was not going any farther. He got out a cigar, pierced the end of it with a patent American stiletto, set it in his clean-shaven mouth, lit it, and began to smoke. Then he took another peep at the nun.


Genre: Literary Fiction