The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lady Cassandra, by Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

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Title: Lady Cassandra

Author: Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

Release Date: June 18, 2010 [EBook #32882]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY CASSANDRA ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Lady Cassandra, by Mrs George de Horne Vaizey.

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LADY CASSANDRA, BY MRS GEORGE DE HORNE VAIZEY.

CHAPTER ONE.

A MATRIMONIAL HURDLE.

Cassandra Raynor stood on the terrace of her great house, looking over
the sweep of country stretching to right and left, and in her heart was
the deadliest of all weariness,--the weariness of repletion. It seemed
at that moment the bitterest cross that she had nothing left for which
to wish, that everything good which the world could give was hers
already, and had left her cold.

The stately old house was hers, with its treasures of old-world
furnishings, the same furnishings which had ministered to generations
dead and gone, and would minister to others yet to come. It would have
been considered sacrilege to stamp the individuality of the chatelaine
of an hour on those historic halls. The distant stretch of country was
part of her estate, but the sight of it brought no thrill to Cassandra's
veins. Her jaded eyes had wearied of the familiar landscape, as they
had wearied of the interior of the house, in which she seemed more a
tenant than a mistress.

Cassandra wandered idly to and fro, obsequiously shadowed by obsequious
servants, and wondered what it would feel like to live in a
semi-detached villa, and arrange one's own rooms in one's own way, and
frill pink silk curtains, and festoon lamp shades, and run to the door
to meet a husband returning from the City. She herself had never run to
meet Bernard. If she had once begun that sort of thing, she might have
been running all day long, for he was always in and out. She wondered
what it would feel like to have a husband who disappeared regularly at
nine a.m., and returned at