Explore "The Flame that Failed" by Christopher Ward on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Lily Dale was a little thing, with exquisite features, a pretty, laughing face and amber eyes. She was a lover of flowers, a neat housekeeper, a good cook. She was honest, cheerful, self-reliant, humorous. In fact, she was a great deal better than she should be, considering what she was. In the entire category of virtues she lacked only two, grammar and -- the title rôle.
In her little flat she cooked a steak for Maurice better than any he'd had since he was married -- and made a cup of coffee to match it. She put him in a big chair before an open fire, with a hyacinth on the table beside him. She sat on a hassock by him, smoked cigarettes and told him funny stories... and Maurice discovered why men leave home....