E-text prepared by David Garcia, Diane Monico,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
GREY ROSES
By the same Author
The Cardinal's Snuff-Box
Comedies and Errors
The Lady Paramount
Mademoiselle Miss
GREY ROSES
BY HENRY HARLAND
'Yes, the conception was a rose,
but the achievement is a rose
grown grey.'—PARASCHKINE
JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD, LONDON
JOHN LANE COMPANY, NEW YORK, MCMXI
FIFTH EDITION
PRESSWORK BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
JOHN WILSON AND SON · CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
CONTENTS
- PAGE
- THE BOHEMIAN GIRL1
- MERCEDES54
- A BROKEN LOOKING-GLASS67
- THE REWARD OF VIRTUE78
- A RE-INCARNATION96
- FLOWER O' THE QUINCE123
- WHEN I AM KING135
- A RESPONSIBILITY161
- CASTLES NEAR SPAIN183
THE BOHEMIAN GIRL
I.
I woke up very gradually this morning, and it took me a little whileto bethink myself where I had slept—that it had not been in my ownroom in the Cromwell Road. I lay a-bed, with eyes half-closed,drowsily look looking forward to the usual procession of sober-huedLondon hours, and, for the moment, quite forgot the journey ofyesterday, and how it had left me in Paris, a guest in the smart newhouse of my old friend, Nina Childe. Indeed, it was not until somebodytapped on my door, and I roused myself to call out 'Come in,' that Inoticed the strangeness of the wall-paper, and then, after an instantof perplexity, suddenly remembered. Oh, with a wonderful lightening ofthe spirit, I can tell you.
A white-capped, brisk young woman, with a fresh-coloured, wholesomepeasant face, came in, bearing a tray—Jeanne, Nina's