Explore "The Cords of Vanity" by James Branch Cabell on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Stella's mother had closed Bellemeade for the year, however, and they were to spend the winter in Lichfield; and Stella, to reduplicate her phrase, promised to "think it over very seriously."
But I suppose I had never any real chance against Peter Blagden. To begin with -- though Stella herself, of course, would inherit plenty of money when her mother died -- Peter was the only nephew of a childless uncle who was popularly reported to "roll in wealth"; and in addition, Peter was seven years older than I and notoriously dissipated. No other girl of twenty would have hesitated between us half so long as Stella did. She hesitated through a whole winter; and even now there is odd, if scanty, comfort in the fact that Stella hesitated.