The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Pretty Lady , by Arnold E. Bennett

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Title: The Pretty Lady

Author: Arnold E. Bennett

Release Date: June 21, 2004 [eBook #12673]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRETTY LADY ***

E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Bill Hershey, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

THE PRETTY LADY

A Novel

by

ARNOLD BENNETT

1918

"_Virtue has never yet been adequately represented by any
who have had any claim to be considered virtuous. It is the
sub-vicious who best understand virtue. Let the virtuous
people stick to describing vice--which they can do well
enough_."

SAMUEL BUTLER

CONTENTS

Chapter

1. THE PROMENADE

2. THE POWER

3. THE FLAT

4. CONFIDENCE

5. OSTEND

6. THE ALBANY

7. FOR THE EMPIRE

8. BOOTS

9. THE CLUB

10. THE MISSION

11. THE TELEGRAM

12. RENDEZVOUS

13. IN COMMITTEE

14. QUEEN

15. EVENING OUT

16. THE VIRGIN

17. SUNDAY AFTERNOON

18. THE MYSTIC

19. THE VISIT

20. MASCOT

21. THE LEAVE-TRAIN

22. GETTING ON WITH THE WAR

23. THE CALL

24. THE SOLDIER

25. THE RING

26. THE RETURN

27. THE CLYDE

28. SALOME

29. THE STREETS

30. THE CHILD'S ARM

31. "ROMANCE"

32. MRS. BRAIDING

33. THE ROOF

34. IN THE BOUDOIR

35. QUEEN DEAD

36. COLLAPSE

37. THE INVISIBLE POWERS

38. THE VICTORY

39. IDYLL

40. THE WINDOW

41. THE ENVOY

Chapter I

THE PROMENADE

The piece was a West End success so brilliant that even if you
belonged to the intellectual despisers of the British theatre you
could not hold up your head in the world unless you had seen it; even
for such as you it was undeniably a success of curiosity at least.

The stage scene flamed extravagantly with crude orange and viridian
light, a rectangle of bedazzling illumination; on the boards, in the
midst of great width, with great depth behind them and arching height
above, tiny squeaking figures ogled the primeval passion in gesture
and innuendo. From the arc of the upper circle convergent beams of
light p