[Gutenberg 32882] • Lady Cassandra

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 seven. One might be quite glad to see him