Lady Lilith Author:Stephen McKenna Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER THREE THE SPIRIT OF PAN "A maid too easily Conceits herself to be Those things Her lover sings; And being straitly wooed, Believes herself the ... more »Good And Fair He seeks in her." Francis Thompson: "any Saint." "D'vou remember once saying that you wanted the tonic of a good scandal?" asked Jack Waring one night three years later. "It was soon after King Edward's death." "And we were all very respectable and dull." Valentine Arden roused from sleep, blinked at the clock and rang for a whiskey and soda. "One recalls it. There is a difference between court mourning and the second coming of Christ, but the English are the last people in the world to recognize it. And there is a difference between taking a tonic and being pelted to death with medicine bottles. Since those days one scans the paper each morning to see what new reputations have been lost. Who has made the latest Roman holiday?" "Oh, it's this old business about your friend Barbara Neave." Jack threw the paper to Arden and took up another in which he could read, with insignificant verbal changes, a second and equally gratifying account of his own prowess in the Court of Appeal that day. Three years earlier he had talked to Eric Lane of abandoning his unproductivecriminal work on circuit; he now wondered whether he dared abandon circuit work altogether and concentrate on his London practice. After, perhaps, six years more he would be wondering whether to risk his whole practice by applying for silk. Success was none the less gratifying because he had backed his own determination against the disparaging anticipations of his friends. Jack knew as well as any one that he was not a great lawyer; but natural shrewdness gained him a reputation for sound judgement; slowness passed for caution; and ...« less