Click here to Download Frivolous Cupid PDF Book by Anthony Hope by Frank R. Stockton English having PDF Size 1 MB and No of Pages 69.
Neither life nor the lawn-tennis club was so full at Natterley that the news of Harry Sterling’s return had not some importance. He came back, moreover, to assume a position very different from his old one. He had left Harrow now, departing in the sweet aroma of a long score against Eton at Lord’s, and was to go up to Oxford in October.
Frivolous Cupid PDF Book by Anthony Hope
| Name of Book | Frivolous Cupid |
| Author | Anthony Hope |
| PDF Size | 1 MB |
| No of Pages | 69 |
| Language | English |
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Now between a schoolboy and a University man there is a gulf, indicated unmistakably by the cigarette which adorned Harry’s mouth as he walked down the street with a newly acquiescent father, and thoroughly realized by his old playmates. The young men greeted him as an equal, the boys grudgingly accepted his superiority.
And the girls received him much as though they had never met him before in their lives and were pressingly in need of an introduction. These features of his reappearance amused Mrs. Mortimer; she recollected him as an untidy, shy, pretty boy; but mind, working on matter, had so transformed him that she was doubtful enough about him to ask her husband if that were really Harry Sterling.
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Mr. Mortimer, mopping his bald head after one of his energetic failures at lawn tennis, grunted assent, and remarked that a few years more would see a like development in their elder son, a remark which bordered on absurdity; for Johnny was but eight, and ten years are not a few years to a lady of twenty-eight, whatever they may seem to a man of forty four.
Presently Harry, shaking himself free from an entangling group of the Vicarage girls, joined his father, and the two came across to Mrs. Mortimer. She was a favorite of old Sterling’s, and he was proud to present his handsome son to her. She listened graciously to his jocosities, stealing a glance at Harry when his father called him “a good boy.”
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Harry blushed and assumed an air of indifference, tossing his hair back from his smooth forehead, and swinging his racket carelessly in his hand. The lady addressed some words of patronizing kindness to him, seeking to put him at his ease. She seemed to succeed to some extent, for he let his father and her husband go off together.
And sat down by her on the bench, regardless of the fact that the Vicarage girls were waiting for him to make a fourth. He said nothing, and Mrs. Mortimer looked at him from under her long lashes; in so doing she discovered that he was looking at her. “Aren’t you going to play any more, Mr. Sterling?” she asked. “Why aren’t you playing?” he rejoined.
“My husband says I play too badly.” “Oh, play with me! We shall make a good pair.” “Then you must be very good.” “Well, no one can play a hang here, you know. Besides I’m sure you’re all right, really.” “You forget my weight of years.” He opened his blue eyes a little, and laughed. He was, in fact, astonished to find that she was quite a young woman. Frivolous Cupid PDF Book
Remembering old Mortimer and the babies, he had thought of her as full middle-aged. But she was not; nor had she that likeness to a suet pudding, which his newborn critical faculty cruelly detected in his old friends, the Vicarage girls. There was one of them—Maudie—with whom he had flirted in his holidays.
He wondered at that, especially when a relentless memory told him that Mrs. Mortimer must have been at the parties where the thing went on. He felt very much older, so much older that Mrs. Mortimer became at once a contemporary. Why, then, should she begin, as she now did, to talk to him, in quasi maternal fashion, about his prospects?
Men don’t have prospects, or, anyhow, are spared questionings thereon. Either from impatience of this topic, or because, after all, tennis was not to be neglected, he left her, and she sat alone for a little while, watching him play. She was glad that she had not played; she could not have rivaled the activity of the Vicarage girls. Frivolous Cupid PDF Book
She got up and joined Mrs. Sterling, who was presiding over the club teapot. The good lady expected compliments on her son, but for some reason Mrs. Mortimer gave her none. Very soon, indeed, she took Johnnie away with her, leaving her husband to follow at his leisure. “‘Yes; my name’s—my name begins with M. Oh, if I’d only seen that waiter this morning! Oh, the idiot!’ “Then I believe I swore.
“‘Madame,’ said I, ‘I’m ruined! No harm is done to you—I’m a man of honor—but I’m ruined. On the strength of your wretched notes, madame, I’ve cut the girl I love best in the world—cut her dead—dead—dead!’ “‘What? That young lady in the—— Oh, you thought they were from her? Oh, I see? How—how—oh, how very amusing!’
And the heartless little wretch went off into another peal of laughter. “‘You pretended not to know her! Oh, dear! oh, dear!’ and her laughter echoed among the trees again. ‘I saw her looking at you, and you ate on like a pig! Oh, dear! oh, dear!’ “‘Stop laughing!’ said I savagely. “‘Oh, I’m very sorry, but I can’t. What a scrape you’ve go into! Oh, me!’ Frivolous Cupid PDF Book
And she wiped her eyes (they were as blue as her cloak) with a delicate bit of a handkerchief. “‘You shan’t laugh,’ said I. ‘Who were your notes for?’ “‘Somebody I expected. He hasn’t come. The waiter took you for him, I suppose. I never thought of his being so stupid. Oh, what a brute she must have thought you!’ And she began to laugh again.
“I had had enough of it. I hate being laughed at. “‘If you go on laughing,’ said I, ‘I’ll kiss you again.’ “The threat was a failure; she did not appear at all alarmed. “‘Not you!’ she said, laughing worse than ever. “I should like you fellows to understand that my heart never wavered in its allegiance to Lady Mary—my conscience is quite clear as to that—but I had pledged my word.
I caught that tiresome girl round the waist and I kissed her once—I’m sure of once, anyhow. She gasped and struggled, laughing still. Then, with a sudden change of voice, she cried, ‘Stop’, stop!’ “I let her go. I looked round. We had a gallery of spectators. On one side stood the uglyheaded valet; on the other, in attitudes of horror, Mary and Miss Dibbs! Frivolous Cupid PDF Book
“‘You’ve ruined us both now,’ said the girl in blue. “I rose to my feet and was about to explain, when the ugly fellow rushed at me, brandishing a cane. I had quite enough to arrange without being bothered by him. I caught the cane in my left hand, and with my right I knocked him down. “Then I walked up to Lady Mary.
I took no heed of Miss Dibbs’ presence; it was too critical a moment to think of trifles. “‘Lady Mary,’ said I, ‘appearances are so much against me that you cannot possibly attach the slightest weight to them.’ “‘Sir,’ said she, ‘I have no longer the honor of your acquaintance. I have only to thank you for having had the consideration not to recognize me when we met so unexpectedly in the dining room.
Pray continue to show me the same favor.’ “With which pleasant little speech she turned on her heel. It was clear that she suspected me most unjustly. I turned to the girl in blue, but she was beforehand with me. “‘Ah, I wish I’d never see you,’ she cried, ‘you great, stupid creature! He [she pointed to the prostrate figure of the ugly servant] will tell Frederic everything.’ Frivolous Cupid PDF Book
“‘Come,’ said I, ‘I was only an accident; it would have been just as bad if——’ “As I spoke I heard a step behind me. Turning round, I found myself face to face with the young man with whom I had come in collision as I rushed through the hall. He gazed at the servant—at me—at the girl in blue.
“Then it’s fair fighting, sir, begging your pardon; and no offense. But the girl was mine first, sir.” Then Gayford interposed. “Mr. Smugg,” said he, “you tell Joe, here, that you’d marry this lady. May I ask how you can—when——” But for once Smugg was able to silence one of his pupils. He arose from his seat, and brought his hand heavily down on Gayford’s shoulder.
“Hold your tongue!” he cried. “I must answer to God, but I needn’t answer to you.” Joe looked at him with round eyes, and, with a last salute, slowly went out. None of us spoke, and presently Smugg opened his Thucydides. For my part, I took very considerable interest in Pyrrha’s side of the question. Frivolous Cupid PDF Book Download
I amused myself by constructing a fancy-born love of Pyrrha’s for her social superior, and if he had been one of ourselves, I should have seen no absurdity. But Smugg refused altogether to fit into my frame. There was no glamour about Smugg; and, to tell the truth, I should have thought that any girl, be her station what it might, faced with the alternative of Smugg and Joe, would have chosen Joe.
In my opinion, Pyrrha was merely amusing herself with Smugg, and I was rather comforted by this reversal of the ordinary roles. Still, I could not rest in conjecture, and my curiosity led me up to Dill’s little farm on the afternoon of the day of Joe’s sudden appearance. The others let me go alone. Directly after dinner Smugg went to his bedroom, and the other three had gone off to play lawn tennis at the vicar’s.
I lit my pipe, and strolled along till I reached the gate that led to Dill’s meadow. Here I waited till Pyrrha should appear. As I sat and smoked, a voice struck suddenly on my ear—the voice of Mrs. Dill, raised to shrillness by anger. “Be off with you,” she said, “and mind your ways, or worse ‘ll happen to you. ‘Ere’s your switch.” Frivolous Cupid PDF Book Download
After a moment Pyrrha turned the corner, and came toward me. She was wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron, and carried in her hand a light hazel switch, which she used to guide errant cows. She was almost at the gate before she saw me. She started, and blushed very red. “Lor! is it you, Mr. Robertson?” she said.
I had great doubts of that—she could have tackled Smugg with one hand; but I said pleasantly: “No more could he, I’m sure.” Pyrrha cast an alarmed glance at the house. “Oh, I’ll be careful,” I laughed. “Yes, and I’ll let you go. But just tell me, Betsy, what do you think of Mr. Smugg?” “I don’t think that of him!” said she, snapping her pretty red fingers.
“Joe ‘ud make ten of him. I wish Joe’d talk to him a bit.” The end came soon after this, and, in spite of our attitude (I speak of us four, not of Smugg) of whole-heartedness, I think it was rather a shock to us all, when Joe announced one morning, on his arrival with the chops, that he was to be made a happy man at the church next day. Frivolous Cupid PDF Book Download
Smugg was not in the room, and the rest of us congratulated Joe, and made up a purse for him to give Pyrrha, with our best respects, and he bowed himself out, mightily pleased, and asseverating that we were real gentlemen. Then we sat and looked at the table. “It robs us of a resource,” pronounced Gayford, once again making himself the mouthpiece of the party.
We all nodded, and filled fresh pipes. Presently Smugg sidled in. We had seen little of him the last week; save when he was construing he had taken refuge in his own room. When he came in now, Gayford wagged his head significantly at me; apparently, it was my task to bell the cat. I rose, and went to the mantelpiece.
Smugg had sat down at the table, and my back was to him. I took a match from the box, struck it, and applied it to my pipe, and, punctuating my words with interspersed puffings, I said carelessly: “By the way, Smugg, Pyrrha’s going to be married to Joe Shanks to-morrow.” I don’t know how he looked. I kept my face from him, but, after a long minute’s pause, he answered: “Thank you, Robertson. Frivolous Cupid PDF Book Free
It’s Aeschylus this morning, isn’t it?” We had a noisy evening that night. I suppose we felt below par, and wanted cheering up. Anyhow, we made an expedition to the grocer’s, and amazed him with a demand for his best champagne and his choicest sherry. We carried the goods home in a bag, and sat down to a revel.
Smugg had some bread and cheese in his own room; he said that he had letters to write. We dined largely, and drank still more largely; then we sang, and at last—it was near on twelve, a terrible hour for that neighborhood—we made our way, amid much boisterousness and horseplay, to bed; where I, at least, was asleep in five minutes.
As the church clock struck two, I awoke. I heard a sound of movement in Smugg’s room next door. I lay and listened. Presently his door opened, and he creaked gently downstairs. I sprang out of bed and looked out of the window. Smugg, fully dressed, was gliding along the path toward Dill’s farm. Some impulse—curiosity only, very likely—made me jump into my trousers, seize a flannel jacket. Frivolous Cupid PDF Book Free
Draw on a pair of boots, and hastily follow him. When I got outside he was visible in the moonlight, mounting the path ahead of me. He held on his way toward the farm, I following. When he reached the yard he stopped for a moment, and seemed to peer up at the windows, which were all dark and unresponsive.
I stood as quiet as I could, twenty yards from him, and moved cautiously on again when he turned to the right and passed through the gate into the meadows.