The Descent of Man and Other Stories: reference pack
Edith Wharton, 1904 (Project Gutenberg #4519). Every scene was read and summarised by Claude, and the groups and draft events were written by hand, as a comparison target for the story-to-pack tool and its use of local inference. It is a reference to compare against, not an answer key: another careful reader would group some of these differently.
10 stories · 262 scenes (same ~320-word cut as the O. Henry and Jacobs probes) · 16 recurring groups ·
129 scenes (49%) in a group · 16 draft events ·
61 options
A group needs ≥3 of the 10 stories and no story above 50% of its members (O. Henry: ≥4 of 97, ≤40%). Effects are a path and a direction only: DESIGN.md gives numbers to the search, not the model.
A group needs ≥3 of the 10 stories and no story above 50% of its members (O. Henry: ≥4 of 97, ≤40%). Effects are a path and a direction only: DESIGN.md gives numbers to the search, not the model.
Setting
Suggested player role: You are new to money and to the people who have it, in a city where everything is forgiven except being talked about. (A suggestion only: DESIGN.md makes the one-line player role the designer's to write.)
money | Money |
owed | Obligations (what you have accepted and will be asked to repay) |
standing | Standing (what people say about you) |
skills.tact | Tact: smoothing things over, saying the acceptable thing |
skills.candour | Candour: saying the true thing and bearing the cost |
relationship.confides_in_you | Confides in you |
relationship.obliged_to_you | Obliged to you |
relationship.resents_you | Resents you |
Across the ten stories, the thing people spend is reputation, and the two ways of spending it are the two skills: smoothing over (the wife in 'The Other Two', the publisher in 'The Descent of Man', Mrs. Vervain as trained by Thursdale) and plain speaking at a cost (Hope Fenno, Julia Westall at the end, the mother in 'The Quicksand'). Almost nobody borrows money in these stories; what they incur instead is an obligation to someone, so the debt slot is labelled that way.
Roles: {spouse}The spouse · {former}The one from before: a former spouse or old intimate who still has a claim · {rival}The rival for the person you want · {patron}The elder with power over you: a relation, a publisher, a senior partner · {ward}The young person in your charge, or your child · {employer}The person you work for, in their private trouble · {confidant}The candid friend or cousin who tells you what you would rather not hear
Stages: On sufferance: The protagonist is dependent, new, in service or hard up: they need something from the people around them. · Established: The protagonist is married, known and comfortable: their trouble is what their position costs to keep.
Groups and their events
Money on terms you despise
Someone is offered money or success on condition they go along with something they think is wrong, and tells themselves it will cost nothing that matters.
one predicament12 scenes4 storieslargest story 50%stage: inside
Member scenes
| 12 | The Descent of Man | Someone is offered success on condition they let the world believe something they do not believe. The publisher offers to sell the book as sincere, promising a mass success, and asks the author to let it stand as his real conviction. |
| 14 | The Descent of Man | Someone in a money pinch accepts a well-paid compromise, telling themselves it will cost them nothing that matters. Short of money after illness, the author accepts a large advance, sure his colleagues will see through the book and his reputation will be safe. |
| 22 | The Descent of Man | Someone enjoying the attention their false reputation brings slips into living the part. Fame opens society to the author; charmed by clever women, he grows used to telling how the book first came to him. |
| 23 | The Descent of Man | Someone sells their name more and more freely because it keeps the household comfortable. The author gives paid interviews on every subject and lends his face to advertisements, which keeps his household solvent. |
| 27 | The Descent of Man | Someone is offered money to repeat a sham and must choose between it and the real work they want to do. The publisher says the old book is fading and offers a big advance only for a sequel; the author declares he will write a serious book instead. |
| 28 | The Descent of Man | Someone who meant to refuse a tempting compromise gives in, promising themselves it is only a delay. Warned that popularity perishes, the author wavers, takes the advance on the sequel, and tells himself the serious book can wait six months. |
| 53 | The Other Two | Someone trades their scruples for comfort, little by little, and learns to call it a bargain. Habit dulls the husband's objections; he reckons that his predecessors trained his wife to make him comfortable. |
| 79 | Expiation | Someone enjoys a success whose real origin they cannot admit to the people praising them. Her book has sold a hundred and fifty thousand; strangers recognise and praise her courage on the train. |
| 87 | Expiation | Someone who secretly bought a favour cannot claim credit for it without admitting the bargain. A fellow writer guesses she paid for the window herself; she half denies it, indignant that the bishop claims credit. |
| 230 | The Quicksand | Someone discovers that the comfort they have enjoyed is paid for by something shameful. She married without knowing what the paper was, enjoyed its money, then learned it traded in exposing private scandal. |
| 232 | The Quicksand | Someone who meant to refuse tainted money comes to depend on it to save a person they love. Her husband promised to sell the paper in time, but her delicate son's life depended on the money, and she sank deeper with each compromise. |
| 233 | The Quicksand | Someone who compromised long ago pins their hope of release on the next generation. She tried to purify the money through charity and to hide the paper from her son behind beauty; on her husband's death she hoped the son would sell it. |
Draft event
{patron} has read what you wrote and taken it exactly the wrong way, and is offering a great deal of money to go on taking it that way in public. All you have to do is say nothing. from 12, 14
The advance would cover the household for a year. It is for more of the same thing you swore, six months ago, you would never do again. from 27, 28
You have found out where the money comes from. It is the same money that has paid for everything you like about your life. from 230, 232
| Option | Source | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Take it, and tell yourself it changes nothing. It changes nothing for a while. Then it changes what you are asked to do next. | scene 14 | money ▲owed ▲candour ▼flags.took_the_money ✓ |
| Take it this once, to pay for the thing you actually care about. You buy what you needed for the real work. The real work is put off by exactly as long as the other thing takes. | scene 28 | money ▲owed ▲standing ▲ |
| Refuse, and say why. {patron} is not offended, only puzzled, and offers the same terms to somebody else by the end of the week. | archetype | candour ▲patron.obliged_to_you ▼money ▼ |
| Neither sign nor refuse. Let it lie on the desk. It is printed anyway. Silence, it turns out, was the only thing they needed from you. | archetype | money ▲tact ▲notable + |
A way out, with strings attached
Someone who needs help is offered it, but only on terms that will cost them something they value.
broad5 scenes4 storieslargest story 40%stage: outside
Member scenes
| 26 | The Descent of Man | Someone ready to do their real work finds the backer they relied on now wants something first. A colleague urges him to drop everything and write his serious book; the author asks his publisher for an advance and is refused. |
| 89 | The Lady's Maid's Bell | Someone who badly needs a place takes one they have been frankly warned will be hard. The patron warns that the house is gloomy, the mistress an invalid who lost her children, and the last maid is dead; the servant accepts. |
| 215 | The Quicksand | Someone is asked to give up their livelihood as the price of being loved. The girl wants him to give up the paper or run it honestly at a loss; he mocks her fashionable ethics. |
| 256 | A Venetian Night's Entertainment | Someone is offered a way out, provided they accept terms they will not like. She says she cannot be saved but he can, if he will do as she says without looking at her. |
| 257 | A Venetian Night's Entertainment | Someone learns they can buy their way out of a trap, and that is exactly what the trap was for. She explains that everyone involved can be bought, and begs him to offer a ransom to go free. |
Draft event
There is a place for you. It is also, you are told quite frankly, the kind of place people leave. from 89
{patron} will back you, gladly and at once, once you have done one more thing first. from 26
There is a way out of this, and you will not like what it costs. You are asked to hear it without looking at the person telling you. from 256, 257
| Option | Source | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Accept the terms. You are out of the hole and into the arrangement, which is a different hole with better furniture. | archetype | money ▲owed ▲ |
| Take it anyway: you have been warned, and you need it. Being warned turns out to be worth less than you thought, and needing it exactly as much. | scene 89 | money ▲candour ▲flags.took_the_hard_place ✓ |
| Ask for the help without the condition. {patron} explains, kindly, that the condition was the help. | filled | tact ▲patron.resents_you ▲ |
| Do without. You manage. It is not the same as being all right. | archetype | money ▼standing ▲ |
An old attachment comes back
Someone's present commitment is disturbed by a former partner or intimate who still has a claim, or a hold, on them or on the person they love.
one predicament12 scenes3 storieslargest story 50%stage: inside
Member scenes
| 30 | The Other Two | Someone's new household is disrupted at once by a crisis inherited from their partner's past. The honeymoon is cut short by the illness of the wife's daughter from her first marriage; the husband takes comfort in his wife's calm. |
| 33 | The Other Two | Someone's comfortable new start is interrupted by a claim from their partner's former spouse. The wife arrives worried: her first husband's lawyer has written about his right to see the child. |
| 34 | The Other Two | Someone must let an unwelcome person into their home because that person has a right they cannot refuse. The first husband has the legal right to visit his sick daughter in the new husband's house; the husband reluctantly agrees. |
| 39 | The Other Two | Someone catches an unintended glimpse of their partner's past habits and cannot un-see it. His wife says she let the nurse receive the visitor, then absent-mindedly pours brandy into her husband's coffee as her ex-husband took it, and blushes. |
| 52 | The Other Two | Someone feels they hold only part of a person whose loyalties are shared with others from their past. The husband feels he owns only a share in his wife, with her former husbands as partners, and resents her tactful acquiescence. |
| 55 | The Other Two | Someone is caught in a room with two people from their partner's past, and no one knows how to behave. The second ex-husband arrives unannounced on business while the first husband sits there; all three men stand awkwardly as tea is laid out. |
| 168 | The Reckoning | Someone turns up, unannounced, at the door of a person they once wronged. She finds herself outside her first husband's house, watches him go in, and on impulse rings the bell. |
| 169 | The Reckoning | Someone forces a meeting with a former partner who would rather not see them. She talks her way past the footman; her first husband, shocked, receives her to avoid a scene. |
| 170 | The Reckoning | Someone asks a former partner for a hearing and is told to go through proper channels. In the unchanged room he coldly suggests she speak through lawyers; she says lawyers cannot help this time. |
| 199 | The Dilettante | Someone who has moved on to a new commitment returns to an old intimate as if nothing had changed. A newly engaged man drops in on the woman he has long kept as an intimate friend, meaning to talk over her meeting with his fiancée. |
| 204 | The Dilettante | Someone expects an old arrangement to continue and is told it is ending. His friend is startled to see him and speaks of this as a last visit; he insists nothing has changed. |
| 207 | The Dilettante | Someone who thought their past was their own business finds it standing in the way of their future. He protests that a man's past is his own; she says the fiancée objects even to a mere friendship, and came to see whether he was really free. |
Draft event
{former} has a right, written down by a court, to come into your house once a week. This is the week. from 33, 34
Your {spouse} pours your coffee exactly the way {former} used to take it, and blushes when you say so. from 39
You are engaged now, and you have called on {former} as you always did, as though nothing had changed. {former} does not seem to think so. from 199, 204
You find yourself outside {former}'s door, with no appointment and no good reason, and you ring anyway. from 168, 169
| Option | Source | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Be civil. Offer a chair and a cigar. It is easier than you expected, which is its own kind of trouble. | scene 54 (outside group, -1 from a member) | tact ▲former.resents_you ▼spouse.confides_in_you ▼ |
| Be out of the house when it happens. You are out of the house, and run into a different piece of the past on the way. | scene 35 (outside group, +1 from a member) | standing ▼tact ▼ |
| Ask your {spouse} what it was really like, before. You get tears instead of an answer, which is an answer. | scene 48 (outside group, -4 from a member) | candour ▲spouse.confides_in_you ▼spouse.resents_you ▲ |
| Laugh, and take the third cup. Everyone is very pleasant. Nobody mentions it afterwards, and you find you have stopped minding. | scene 57 (outside group, +2 from a member) | tact ▲standing ▲notable + |
Finding out what they hid
Someone discovers that a person close to them has been hiding something, and must decide what it changes.
one predicament10 scenes6 storieslargest story 20%stage: any
Member scenes
| 44 | The Other Two | Someone glimpses their partner's hidden origins and begins to doubt who they really married. Seeing the first husband's cheap manners, the husband pictures his wife's humble former life and is disturbed by how completely she has left it behind. |
| 46 | The Other Two | Someone learns from an outsider that their partner lied to them, while being asked to intervene in a family matter. The first husband reveals he did see the wife on the first visit, exposing her lie, and says the governess is making the girl dishonest. |
| 120 | The Mission of Jane | Someone senses their spouse is hiding something and teases it out of them. A clever, condescending husband notices his simple wife glowing and teases her into admitting she has done something he will not like. |
| 122 | The Mission of Jane | Someone discovers that their spouse has carried a deep disappointment they never noticed. Baffled, the husband learns she wants the child to be theirs and has long grieved at being childless. |
| 159 | The Reckoning | Someone reads a partner's new kindness as a sign of bad news and presses for the truth. Her husband is unusually gentle, which frightens her; when he plans to continue the talks she reminds him she objected. |
| 193 | The Letter | Someone confronts another with damning evidence about the person they love, and meets calm disbelief. He tells her who gave up the letter; she coolly asks for proof and does not cry out against the man she loves. |
| 205 | The Dilettante | Someone learns that the person they are about to marry went behind their back to an old intimate. She reveals that his fiancée came to see her a second time that morning, which he did not know. |
| 206 | The Dilettante | Someone discovers their fiancée has been asking about their past with another person. She pities him and hints that a letter may await him; the fiancée came to find out whether anything had happened between them. |
| 259 | A Venetian Night's Entertainment | Someone who has fallen for another begins to sense they are being played. He declares his love; she kisses him, takes a trinket from his watch-chain, and laughs strangely that she will get none of the money. |
| 260 | A Venetian Night's Entertainment | Someone discovers they were the mark in a confidence trick just as rescue arrives. He realises the whole thing was a swindle; she admits it but says her love was real, just as his ship's captain and tutor arrive with the police. |
Draft event
Somebody who has no reason to lie mentions, in passing, a thing your {spouse} told you had not happened. from 46
Your {spouse} has been kinder than usual all week. You have started to wonder what it is in aid of. from 159
You learn that the person you are about to marry went, alone and by appointment, to ask someone else about you. from 205, 206
It dawns on you, halfway through being thanked, that the whole thing was arranged, and that you were the one it was arranged for. from 259, 260
| Option | Source | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Ask straight out. You get the truth, or enough of it, and you cannot give it back. | archetype | candour ▲spouse.confides_in_you ▼ |
| Say nothing. It is done now. It is done. It is also always in the room. | archetype | tact ▲spouse.confides_in_you ▼flags.knows_and_says_nothing ✓ |
| Find out for yourself, quietly, before you say anything. What you learn about the other side is all to their credit, which makes it worse. | scene 47 (outside group, +1 from a member) | tact ▲standing ▼ |
| Pay what it takes to be out of it, and go. It costs you money and a certain opinion of yourself. The money was the cheaper part. | scene 260 | money ▼standing ▲ |
Keeping someone else's secret
Someone is drawn into another person's secret and must decide whether to lie, stay silent, or give it up when pressed.
one predicament5 scenes3 storieslargest story 40%stage: outside
Member scenes
| 105 | The Lady's Maid's Bell | Someone is sent on a discreet errand that seems meant to be hidden from the head of the house. The mistress, weak, calls the maid by the dead maid's name; next morning she sends her secretly to fetch medicine and carry a note to the neighbour. |
| 107 | The Lady's Maid's Bell | Someone is questioned by a suspicious superior and must decide whether to lie to protect another. Wondering whether the note was the secret errand, the maid delivers it; the master confronts her and she lies to protect her mistress. |
| 197 | The Letter | Someone is asked to keep a secret that will deny a grieving person the comfort they long for. Convinced despite himself, he asks why the hero never told her; she asks him to keep the letter secret from everyone, even her mother. |
| 251 | A Venetian Night's Entertainment | Someone accused of compromising another must defend themselves without exposing them. He is accused of secret correspondence with the girl, now repudiated by her betrothed; he refuses to hide behind her word. |
| 252 | A Venetian Night's Entertainment | Someone could clear themselves by producing evidence, but the person it would expose begs them not to. Asked to clear her by showing the letter, he sees her silently beg him not to. |
Draft event
You are sent on an errand before the house is up, and asked to be back before the master of it is. On the way back, he is waiting. from 105, 107
You hold the only proof of something that would comfort a grieving woman and ruin the man she has never met. You are asked to tell no one, not even her. from 197
You could clear yourself in a sentence by showing what is in your pocket. The person it would expose is looking at you and very slightly shaking her head. from 251, 252
| Option | Source | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Lie for them, looking straight back. It comes out ready-made. You had not known you had it in you. | scene 107 | employer.confides_in_you ▲candour ▼spouse.resents_you ▲flags.lied_for_them ✓ |
| Say you do not show your private affairs to strangers. It is perfectly true and perfectly useless, and it is taken as a confession. | scene 253 (outside group, +1 from a member) | standing ▼employer.obliged_to_you ▲ |
| Tell what you know. You are thanked by the person who asked, and never again by the person you were covering for. | archetype | candour ▲employer.resents_you ▲standing ▲ |
| Keep it, and never tell anyone you kept it. It is the most generous thing you will ever do, and nobody, including the person it was for, will ever know. | scene 198 (outside group, +1 from a member) | tact ▲notable + |
About to be exposed in public
Someone's work or private arrangement is about to be judged in front of the very people they most feared would see it.
broad12 scenes4 storieslargest story 50%stage: inside
Member scenes
| 10 | The Descent of Man | Someone learns their joke has been taken in earnest by exactly the audience it mocked. The publisher takes the parody for a sincere confession of faith; the author, realising, bursts out laughing. |
| 17 | The Descent of Man | Someone embarrassed by their own success reads praise for the very thing they meant as a sham. The author hides in his work on publication day, then reads a serious review praising his mock platitudes as noble truths. |
| 18 | The Descent of Man | Someone who accepted a passing embarrassment learns it will follow them for years. Every paper follows the first review, and the publisher predicts the book will sell for years; the author is alarmed by its staying power. |
| 58 | Expiation | Someone who has done something bold in public dreads the moment a disapproving elder relative hears of it. A society wife who has just published a daring novel dreads the arrival of press clippings now that her uncle, a bishop, is in town. |
| 70 | Expiation | Someone's eager spouse forces a private worry into the open before exactly the wrong witness. The husband bursts in waving the first review, delighted that the bishop is there to hear it. |
| 73 | Expiation | Someone must sit through a public verdict on their work in front of the person they most wanted to keep it from. The husband reads the review aloud in front of the bishop; it begins by denouncing the filth of modern fiction. |
| 74 | Expiation | Someone who wanted to shock is dismissed as harmless, which wounds more than condemnation would. The review calls her novel sweetly harmless; weeks later her cousin finds her crushed. |
| 84 | Expiation | Someone fears a public speaker is about to reveal the secret deal they struck. The bishop hints that the donor was a woman and that a book played its part, and eyes turn to her. |
| 85 | Expiation | Someone sits exposed to public attention, waiting to learn whether they are about to be named. Under everyone's gaze she blushes and panics while the bishop expounds on the power of novels for good or ill. |
| 145 | The Reckoning | Someone watches their partner suddenly start proclaiming in public views they once kept carefully private. A husband gives a fashionable talk arguing that faithfulness to oneself outranks marriage vows; his wife notes that he has recently begun preaching publicly what he used to keep private. |
| 147 | The Reckoning | Someone who once pushed a daring idea is uneasy now it is being preached, and looks for someone to blame. The wife, who once urged these views on him, now finds them vulgarised, and resents the hosts' young daughter hearing such talk. |
| 244 | A Venetian Night's Entertainment | Someone receives a secret appeal for help and is immediately caught holding it. The count names her as a senator's daughter; a page slips the youth a note begging his help, and an officer seizes him. |
Draft event
The first review has come. Your {spouse} is delighted, and means to read it aloud, now, in front of {patron}. from 70, 73
The speaker is circling closer and closer to a name, and every head in the room is turning towards you. from 84, 85
The book is everywhere. People quote it at you. They quote the parts you meant as a joke. from 17, 18
| Option | Source | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Sit still and look pleased. Nobody can tell anything from your face, which is exactly what they will say about you afterwards. | archetype | tact ▲standing ▲ |
| Stop it: take the paper out of their hands. It stops. So does the conversation, and several invitations. | filled | standing ▼spouse.resents_you ▲ |
| Say, out loud, that it is yours and you meant it. For a moment it is very quiet. Then somebody asks you to dinner. | archetype | candour ▲standing ▼flags.owned_it ✓ |
| Leave, and let them talk. They talk. You are not there to hear it, which helps less than you hoped. | scene 17 | standing ▼tact ▼ |
Civil to someone you would rather avoid
Someone must deal politely, even helpfully, with a person they resent or fear, because their position leaves them no choice.
one predicament8 scenes4 storieslargest story 50%stage: outside
Member scenes
| 40 | The Other Two | Someone is asked by a superior to serve a person they would rather avoid, and cannot refuse without harming the firm. The husband's ill partner asks him to handle an important deal for his wife's ex-husband; for the firm's sake he agrees. |
| 41 | The Other Two | Someone forced to do business with a rival tries to come out of it looking the more composed. The ex-husband behaves well in the meeting and lets slip that he was once desperate for money; the husband is glad to seem the steadier man. |
| 43 | The Other Two | Someone must be civil to a person whose very presence in their home they resent. The husband is polite to the first husband, then retreats upset that this man has the run of his house. |
| 49 | The Other Two | Someone must keep working closely with a person they would rather avoid, because their position demands it. The first husband uses his rights modestly; meanwhile the husband must keep meeting the second ex-husband on business he cannot pass on. |
| 64 | Expiation | Someone tries to steer an elder away from a dangerous topic by flattering them, and is caught not knowing their work. Left alone with the bishop, the novelist feigns interest in his book to deflect talk of her own, and gets its plot wrong. |
| 96 | The Lady's Maid's Bell | Someone in service must work around a master everyone fears and the mistress shrinks from. The master, a coarse, leering man, looks the maid over and dismisses her; the mistress goes cold in his presence and brightens when he leaves. |
| 98 | The Lady's Maid's Bell | Someone watches their employer endure a spouse's coarseness and can say nothing. The master comes and goes, drinks heavily and grumbles; the servants hint the match was unhappy from the start. |
| 217 | The Quicksand | Someone resents a person who has hurt their child, and is asked not to show it. The girl admires the mother's goodness; the mother, angry, is told her son is not asking her to make the girl love him. |
Draft event
{patron} is laid up and asks you, as a favour to the firm, to handle a piece of business for the one man in town you would cross the street to avoid. from 40, 41
The master of the house is home for two days. Everyone below stairs has gone quiet, and you have been told to keep out of his way. from 96, 98
You are left alone over tea with {patron}, who wants to talk about the one subject you most need to keep off. from 64
| Option | Source | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Do it, and do it better than they would. You come out of it the more composed of the two, which is a small thing to be proud of and you are proud of it anyway. | scene 41 | tact ▲patron.obliged_to_you ▲money ▲ |
| Turn the talk to them, and keep it there. It works until you get the name of their last book wrong. | scene 64 | tact ▲patron.resents_you ▲ |
| Keep out of the way until it passes. It passes. It will come back. | scene 96 | standing ▼ |
| Decline, and let them find someone else. They find someone else, and remember that they had to. | archetype | candour ▲patron.obliged_to_you ▼standing ▼ |
Pleading someone else's case
Someone is asked to carry another person's claim or warning to a third party, knowing it may cost them with one side or the other.
one predicament6 scenes3 storieslargest story 50%stage: any
Member scenes
| 47 | The Other Two | Someone must pass on a claim from a person they have come to respect, against their own partner's wishes. The first husband asserts his legal right to a voice in the girl's upbringing; the husband, learning of the man's sacrifices for his daughter, grows uneasy about his wife's account. |
| 141 | The Mission of Jane | Someone must decide whether to warn an outsider about a relative's faults, at the risk of losing a longed-for outcome. The girl accepts and at once begins to dominate her fiancé; the parents, pitying him, wonder whether to warn him. |
| 142 | The Mission of Jane | Someone who speaks an honest warning is rebuffed as disloyal, and finds the result a relief. The wife tells the fiancé that the girl is always difficult; he says they never understood her and grows cold, which relieves the husband. |
| 218 | The Quicksand | Someone is asked by the person they love most to plead a case they privately doubt. The son asks his mother to visit the girl and show her that the paper has never touched her life. |
| 219 | The Quicksand | Someone goes to plead on another's behalf in a place where they feel they have no footing. The mother calls at the girl's plain, comfortless home and reads failure in the furniture. |
| 220 | The Quicksand | Someone tries to persuade a person of firm principle, and their own example is used against them. The girl is immovable; she says it is the mother's own beautiful example that confirms her refusal. |
Draft event
The person you love most asks you to go and talk someone round on their behalf. You are not at all sure they are in the right. from 218, 219
{former} asks you, very politely, to remind your {spouse} of a right the court gave him. Your {spouse} will not thank you. from 47
The match is made. You could warn the young man what he is getting. If you do, there may be no match. from 141, 142
| Option | Source | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Go, and plead it with everything you have. You argue well. The other side tells you that is exactly why they cannot agree. | scene 222 (outside group, +2 from a member) | tact ▲ward.confides_in_you ▲ |
| Pass it on exactly as it was given to you. You are the messenger, and treated as one. | scene 47 | candour ▲spouse.resents_you ▲former.confides_in_you ▲ |
| Tell the truth, even though it spoils your own hopes. You are told you never understood them. Things turn out rather well. | scene 142 | candour ▲standing ▼notable + |
| Say it is not your place. It is not, and they do not ask again. | archetype | ward.confides_in_you ▼tact ▲ |
Your own words turned against you
Someone is held to a principle, promise or code they once used for their own ends, now that it works against them.
one predicament6 scenes3 storieslargest story 50%stage: insideone-off
Member scenes
| 160 | The Reckoning | Someone who once used a principle for their own ends has it turned against them. She says she hates hearing him say spouses may leave when tired; he reminds her that was her own reason for leaving her first husband. |
| 161 | The Reckoning | Someone is held to a promise they made when they never thought it would be used against them. He accuses her of dropping the doctrine once it had served her, then claims her promise to release him; she says she will not go back on it. |
| 164 | The Reckoning | Someone looks for a way to fight a loss and realises the rules trapping them are their own. She considers fighting through the law or begging, but sees she is trapped by the code she herself made. |
| 222 | The Quicksand | Someone urges a younger person to compromise, and is told their plea proves the danger. The mother pleads that life is made of compromises and love outweighs theories; the girl says that is exactly why she cannot. |
| 253 | A Venetian Night's Entertainment | Someone who keeps another's secret is told the price is a lifelong obligation. He refuses to show his private letters; the count says honour now demands he marry the girl. |
| 254 | A Venetian Night's Entertainment | Someone is trapped and given an hour before a forced commitment they never sought. He is told he must marry her within the hour, and is locked in with her while the chaplain is fetched. |
Draft event
Your {spouse} reminds you of the promise you made each other: either could go, freely, when it was over. It is over, apparently, for one of you. from 160, 161
You kept her secret on your honour. Now, you are told, honour requires you to marry her within the hour. from 253, 254
You urged compromise on someone younger. They answer that your own life is the best argument against it. from 222
| Option | Source | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Keep your word. Wish them luck. You do it perfectly. Afterwards, the house you are standing in does not feel like yours. | scene 162 (outside group, +1 from a member) | standing ▲candour ▲spouse.confides_in_you ▼flags.kept_the_bargain ✓ |
| Go back on it. You did not mean it to apply to you. You are allowed to. You are also told, gently, what you once said about people who did. | scene 164 | standing ▼candour ▼spouse.resents_you ▲ |
| Argue that the circumstances are different. They are, and you cannot say how without saying what has changed in you. | scene 152 (outside group, -8 from a member) | tact ▲ |
Giving something up for someone else
Someone can protect or free another person only by giving up something of their own, and the other may never know.
one predicament8 scenes5 storieslargest story 38%stage: any
Member scenes
| 125 | The Mission of Jane | Someone agrees to a partner's wish they would normally mock, as a way of making amends. The husband agrees without resistance, accepting future ridicule as penance for having underestimated his wife. |
| 198 | The Letter | Someone gives up the thing their own family most needs to protect a person who will never know. She burns the letter rather than risk her mother's anger ruining the hero, and says she can never tell him what she has done for him. |
| 210 | The Dilettante | Someone who has been used offers to sacrifice their own name to save the person who used them. The fiancée wants a man capable of love, not reservations; the friend offers to say she lied, and let him claim a past with her. |
| 211 | The Dilettante | Someone offered an easy escape at another's expense refuses it, and learns they may not need one. Moved, he refuses her sacrifice, saying it would only harm his fiancée; she tells him the fiancée has surely recalled her letter. |
| 221 | The Quicksand | Someone argues with a young person who insists on giving up happiness for a principle. The mother argues that the girl is sacrificing her son to an idea; the girl says she is sacrificing herself. |
| 229 | The Quicksand | Someone breaks a lifetime's silence to save a younger person from their own fate. The mother says she speaks because the girl is as alive as she once was, and she cannot watch her be walled up. |
| 236 | The Quicksand | Someone lays bare their own ruin to warn another, then leaves them to make the choice alone. She warns that the son's love would never change him and that the girl would slowly die as she did; she asks what to tell him, and leaves. |
| 258 | A Venetian Night's Entertainment | Someone offers themselves to rescue another and is refused. He offers to marry her himself instead; she refuses and insists she must marry the other man. |
Draft event
There is a way to save the person who used you: say that you lied, and let your own name take it. from 210
You could stop a younger person making the mistake you made. It would mean telling them what it was. from 229, 236
You could get out of here tonight, if you let someone else pay for it. from 258
| Option | Source | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Give it up for them. It costs you exactly what you thought. They may never know what it was. | archetype | standing ▼former.obliged_to_you ▲notable + |
| Tell the whole story, and let them choose. You leave before they answer. It is the only part you could not bear. | scene 236 | candour ▲ward.confides_in_you ▲standing ▼ |
| Refuse to let them do it for you. You will take what is coming yourself. It turns out less is coming than you feared. | scene 211 | candour ▲former.confides_in_you ▲ |
| Keep what is yours. Nobody blames you. That is not the same as nobody noticing. | archetype | money ▲former.resents_you ▲ |
Giving ground to keep the peace
Someone gives way, again and again, to a spouse or household, because refusing would cost more than it is worth.
one predicament8 scenes5 storieslargest story 38%stage: inside
Member scenes
| 21 | The Descent of Man | Someone breaks their own resolution because giving in is the quickest way to get peace at home. Having sworn not to extend the fraud, the author begins the popular series within the hour, mainly to be rid of his wife's demands. |
| 51 | The Other Two | Someone realises the partner they admired for ease simply gives way to everyone, and must decide whether to mind. Sickened by his wife's endless pliancy, the husband agrees she should be civil; society praises her for smoothing an awkward situation. |
| 57 | The Other Two | Someone in an absurd position chooses to laugh and go along rather than make a scene. The wife smooths the moment by pouring tea for all three men, and the husband takes his cup with a laugh. |
| 69 | Expiation | Someone who meant to stand by their choice finds themselves backing down before an elder's authority. She means to defend her choice but, under the bishop's certainty, begins apologising instead; her husband walks in. |
| 130 | The Mission of Jane | Someone is drawn into a role they never chose, and puts up with it because it makes a partner happy. The wife grows assertive and treats the husband as the child's father; he accepts it because she is happy. |
| 131 | The Mission of Jane | Someone gives ground at home again and again until they have almost no room left. The child does not bring the couple together; the wife's personality expands until the husband is squeezed into a corner of his own home. |
| 136 | The Mission of Jane | Someone cannot rein in a difficult young person without wounding the partner who adores them. The husband's attempts to check her only hurt his wife; the girl, pretty but charmless, fails in society despite great expense. |
| 235 | The Quicksand | Someone makes peace with a loved one's flaw by refusing to look at it. She gave up the struggle and learned to look only at the side of her son that was hers. |
Draft event
Your {spouse} wants something from you again. The fastest way to an evening's quiet is to give it. from 21
The household has grown around the new arrival until there is only one small room of it left for you. from 130, 131
Your {spouse} offers, very sweetly, to do whatever you like about it. You realise they would say the same to anyone. from 50, 51
| Option | Source | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Give way. It is easier. It is easier. You notice, later, that you have stopped keeping count. | scene 21 | spouse.confides_in_you ▲candour ▼money ▼ |
| Hold out on something small. You win the small thing, and discover it was the only one left to win. | scene 128 (outside group, -2 from a member) | candour ▲spouse.resents_you ▲ |
| Dine at the club. The club is very comfortable. You are there most nights now. | scene 135 (outside group, -1 from a member) | money ▼spouse.confides_in_you ▼standing ▲ |
| Say what you actually want. It is not a pleasant evening. It is the first honest one in a long time. | archetype | candour ▲spouse.resents_you ▲spouse.confides_in_you ▲ |
Unseen at home
Someone lives beside a spouse who does not really see them, whether through neglect, blind approval, or plain coarseness.
one predicament7 scenes4 storieslargest story 43%stage: inside
Member scenes
| 2 | The Descent of Man | Someone whose home life is secure but closed to what they care about lives the real part of life alone. A comfortable, dutiful marriage leaves a scholar no companion in the thinking that is his real life. |
| 71 | Expiation | Someone is frustrated by a spouse whose unconditional approval makes nothing they do matter. The narrator explains that the novelist suffers from a husband who admires everything she does without understanding it. |
| 72 | Expiation | Someone tries to provoke a reaction from a partner and gets only praise, which defeats the purpose. She wrote the book partly to provoke her husband's disapproval, but he adores it and presses it on everyone. |
| 97 | The Lady's Maid's Bell | Someone lonely in an unhappy marriage finds comfort in one kind friend. A gentle neighbour who shares the mistress's love of books is her only company in winter, and the servants all like him. |
| 123 | The Mission of Jane | Someone realises their neglect has left a partner lonely for years. The wife confesses her loneliness and that she chose nursery wallpaper years ago; the husband feels he has failed her. |
| 126 | The Mission of Jane | Someone who has kept the letter of a commitment realises they have neglected its spirit. The husband reflects that he has been faithful but emotionally absent, keeping his wife out of his inner life. |
| 127 | The Mission of Jane | Someone watches their partner's devotion shift wholly to someone new and feels shut out. At the hospital the wife is transfigured by the child; the husband feels invisible to her. |
Draft event
Your {spouse} admires everything you do and understands none of it, and has just told the whole room so. from 71, 72
For twenty years there has been a room upstairs papered for someone who never came. You had not noticed that anyone was waiting. from 122, 123
The only person you can talk to about what you care about lives two miles off, and calls in the afternoons when your {spouse} is away. from 97
| Option | Source | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Give them the thing they have wanted, however foolish. They are happy for the first time in years, and you are the one who has to get used to it. | scene 125 (outside group, -1 from a member) | spouse.confides_in_you ▲money ▼flags.made_amends ✓ |
| Find your company elsewhere. It is a great comfort. It is also, you are beginning to notice, being noticed. | scene 97 | confidant.confides_in_you ▲spouse.resents_you ▲standing ▼ |
| Do something they will have to object to. They are delighted with it. | scene 72 | candour ▲standing ▼ |
| Live with it. Most people do. Most people do. | archetype | tact ▲ |
New, and warned
Someone new to a place or a household is warned, or senses, that something is wrong, and must decide whom to believe.
broad8 scenes3 storieslargest story 50%stage: outside
Member scenes
| 31 | The Other Two | Someone has married a person with a talked-about past and has chosen to believe the kindest version of it. The husband recalls the gossip about his wife's obscure origins and first divorce, which society chose to blame on the unknown first husband. |
| 32 | The Other Two | Someone goes ahead with a choice that friends openly warn against, confident they know better. The wife's second marriage bought her social standing, ended in a divorce that made her sympathetic, and friends doubted the wisdom of her third. |
| 90 | The Lady's Maid's Bell | Someone arrives at a new post with an unexplained warning about the person in charge. Told to keep out of the master's way, the servant travels to a large dark country house and is received by the cook. |
| 91 | The Lady's Maid's Bell | Someone new to a household notices something odd that the others refuse to discuss. On her way to her room she sees a pale woman in the passage; the housemaid scolds about a room across the hall that must stay locked. |
| 95 | The Lady's Maid's Bell | Someone senses a household secret, and everyone they ask shuts the conversation down. The cook begs her not to use the locked room, the dead maid's, and refuses to describe her; the master's arrival puts the household on edge. |
| 101 | The Lady's Maid's Bell | Someone hears their predecessors all quit, and finds the staff relieved they did not. The colleague says four maids have left in six months; back at the house the master has arrived and the cook is relieved she returned. |
| 241 | A Venetian Night's Entertainment | Someone who shows they are a naive newcomer with money is approached by a helpful stranger. In the crowded square he overpays a pedlar through ignorance of the coinage, and a pleasant English-speaking stranger offers help. |
| 242 | A Venetian Night's Entertainment | Someone new in a strange place gratefully accepts a guide whose credentials they cannot check. The friendly stranger, calling himself a count, shows him the town and points out its great personages in their odd costumes. |
Draft event
There is a door on your corridor that must be kept locked, and nobody will tell you why, and the cook has gone white at the question. from 91, 95
You mention where you are working, and an old acquaintance pulls a long face: four have left it in six months. from 101
A pleasant stranger who speaks your language has offered to show you how things are done here. He knows everyone. from 241, 242
Everyone who likes you has warned you against this marriage, and you have gone ahead, and it is going well. from 31, 32
| Option | Source | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Ask straight out what is going on. You are told you are imagining it, in a tone that says you are not. | scene 94 (outside group, -1 from a member) | candour ▲employer.resents_you ▲ |
| Say nothing, and keep your eyes open. You learn more that way, and sleep less. | scene 108 (outside group, +7 from a member) | tact ▲flags.watching ✓ |
| Accept the help, gratefully. It is a wonderful afternoon. You pay for most of it, in the coin he chooses. | scene 242 | money ▼standing ▲ |
| Leave while you still can. You leave. You never find out, and you think about it often. | archetype | money ▼employer.confides_in_you ▼ |
The rival
Someone who has lost, or fears losing, the person they want to a rival is tempted to strike at the rival.
one predicament8 scenes4 storieslargest story 50%stage: any
Member scenes
| 37 | The Other Two | Someone stewing over an awkward situation watches a rival who seems not to feel it at all. At lunch the husband sees the ex-husband savouring his coffee with brandy and envies his ease. |
| 63 | Expiation | Someone in authority rewards the relative who flatters them and resents the one who went her own way. The bishop arrives; he favours this niece over her cousin, whose cheap books outsell his own and who refused his advice during her divorce. |
| 153 | The Reckoning | Someone hears their partner openly confess an interest in someone else. He defends the young woman's independence of mind and admits she interests him. |
| 165 | The Reckoning | Someone rushes to warn a rival and, finding them gone, is left with nowhere to go. She goes to warn the young woman, finds her out, and wanders the streets. |
| 186 | The Letter | Someone rejected for a rival lashes out at the person they want, and loses them. The narrator, jealous, accused her of leading him on and sneered at her hero; they parted in anger. |
| 188 | The Letter | Someone stumbles on proof that could destroy a rival and feels the power it gives them. In the archives he finds the hanged boy's farewell letter, marked as handed to the warder by his rival. |
| 189 | The Letter | Someone tempted by jealousy convinces themselves that a rival's old act proves him a traitor. He reasons that the rival must have surrendered the letter to curry favour, and so must be a traitor. |
| 190 | The Letter | Someone lets jealousy override their judgement and hurries to use damaging evidence. Ignoring the rival's long record of courage, the narrator rushes back in anger to the woman he loves. |
Draft event
You have found, in an old file, a paper that would finish {rival}. Nobody else knows it exists. from 188, 189, 190
Your {spouse} has said, quite calmly, that {rival} interests them. from 153
Across the room {rival} is enjoying a coffee and a brandy as though none of this had touched him at all. from 37
| Option | Source | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Use it. It lands exactly where you aimed. The person you did it for defends {rival} better than you could have imagined. | scene 191 (outside group, +1 from a member) | rival.resents_you ▲confidant.confides_in_you ▼standing ▼flags.struck_at_the_rival ✓ |
| Hand it over, and let them judge. You were honest. It does not feel like honesty from the inside. | scene 193 (outside group, +3 from a member) | candour ▲confidant.confides_in_you ▲ |
| Say what you think of them, to the one who loves them. That is the end of that. | scene 186 | confidant.confides_in_you ▼confidant.resents_you ▲ |
| Put it away. It stays put away. You know where. | archetype | tact ▲ |
Owning up
Someone who once wronged another faces them, or a stand-in for them, and must decide how much to admit.
one predicament8 scenes4 storieslargest story 38%stage: anyone-off
Member scenes
| 171 | The Reckoning | Someone confesses their humiliation to the very person who once suffered the same thing at their hands. He braces as if for a request for money; she tells him her husband has left her because he tired of her. |
| 172 | The Reckoning | Someone who once inflicted a hurt now feels it themselves, and needs the person they hurt to know it. He says she need not grant a divorce; she replies that he did not have to either, and asks whether he, too, never understood. |
| 173 | The Reckoning | Someone seeks forgiveness from a person they wronged, and leaves before anything more can be said. He admits he never understood; she asks his forgiveness, shakes his hand, and leaves before he can stop her. |
| 176 | The Letter | Someone finally admits a past act they are ashamed of, now that those it touched are dead. Asked for the bravest thing a woman ever did, he says it was provoked by an act of his own he is not proud of. |
| 202 | The Dilettante | Someone realises that a cautious move of theirs betrayed distrust of a person who deserved better. She received his fiancée perfectly; he regrets having announced the engagement by letter, as if he had doubted her. |
| 209 | The Dilettante | Someone is made to see, through an outsider's eyes, how they have used another person's devotion. The friend confesses she loved him all along; the fiancée saw that he used her and cast her aside, and despised them both. |
| 227 | The Quicksand | Someone who argued for a compromise now confesses they knew all along it was wrong. The mother says she too has suffered, and now admits the girl was right and she was wrong. |
| 228 | The Quicksand | Someone about to make a hopeful sacrifice is told by an older person that they made the same one and regret it. The girl believes love alone could change the son; the mother says she once said the same, before marrying his father. |
Draft event
It has happened to you now, the thing you once did to {former}, and you find you have walked to {former}'s door. from 171, 172
Someone younger is about to do exactly what you did. The only thing that would stop them is the truth about you. from 227, 228
Somebody you trained to hide their feelings has just told you, plainly, what you cost them. from 209
| Option | Source | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Say you understand now, and ask them to forgive you. They say there is nothing to forgive, which is kinder than the truth and less use. | scene 173 | candour ▲former.resents_you ▼standing ▼ |
| Admit it, all of it. It is easier than you expected to say and harder than you expected to have said. | scene 227 | candour ▲ward.confides_in_you ▲ |
| Say something graceful and go. Nobody could have done it better. Nothing has changed. | archetype | tact ▲ |
Waiting on someone else's decision
Someone's hopes hang on a decision entirely in another's hands, and nothing they do seems to hurry it.
broad6 scenes3 storieslargest story 50%stage: any
Member scenes
| 116 | The Lady's Maid's Bell | Someone covering for what they saw goes to bed uneasy, sure something is about to happen. She makes an excuse to the neighbour, returns home, is sent to bed, and at night hears a door open below. |
| 139 | The Mission of Jane | Someone hoping for a match that would relieve them must pretend indifference while it hangs in the balance. An effusively polite young man courts the girl; the parents pretend not to notice while she shows no emotion at all. |
| 140 | The Mission of Jane | Someone longs for a decision that is entirely in another's hands, and that person insists on delaying it. He proposes, and the girl demands a month to think it over, to her parents' agony. |
| 143 | The Mission of Jane | Someone waits through a nerve-racking final stretch, fearing any accident could undo the outcome they need. The girl turns hysterical before the wedding and threatens to break it off; the husband frets over every possible mishap until the groom arrives late. |
| 212 | The Quicksand | Someone whose whole life centres on one person senses that person is in trouble and waits to be told. A mother devoted to her perfect son senses from his walk that he is coming home to tell her something. |
| 226 | The Quicksand | Someone who once refused an offer comes back to say they have changed their mind, and asks if it still stands. The girl confesses she followed the mother there, has been unhappy, and now believes the mother was right; she asks whether the son still cares. |
Draft event
The offer has been made. The answer has been deferred for a month, and there is nothing whatever you can do about it. from 139, 140
You can tell from the way they walk up the street that they are coming home to tell you something. from 212
The house has gone very quiet. You have the feeling that tonight something is going to happen. from 116
| Option | Source | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Try to hurry it along. Your ruses are seen through and the date does not move. | scene 140 | ward.resents_you ▲tact ▼ |
| Pretend not to notice anything at all. You are very good at it. It is exhausting. | scene 139 | tact ▲ |
| Stay up, and be ready. Nothing happens tonight. You are no less tired for that. | scene 116 | ward.confides_in_you ▲standing ▼ |
Every scene
0. The Descent of Man 7,235 words, 29 scenes
| 0 | A scholar returns from a rare holiday alone, secretly delighted by a private idea he has hidden from his wife and colleagues. Someone carries home a private excitement they mean to keep from everyone who knows them. | - |
| 1 | Alone in the woods for the first time since his marriage, a scholar indulges an idea he has never had the freedom to pursue. Someone long hemmed in by routine finally has time to themselves and means to use it. | - |
| 2 | A comfortable, dutiful marriage leaves a scholar no companion in the thinking that is his real life. Someone whose home life is secure but closed to what they care about lives the real part of life alone. | unseen_at_home |
| 3 | A scholar's modest earnings must support his family, and his wife economises to keep up appearances while taking pride in his obscure reputation. Someone's serious work earns respect but not enough money to satisfy the family that depends on it. | - |
| 4 | Overworked supporting his family, a scholar breaks down, and in the enforced rest surveys how his field is seen by the public. Someone forced to stop working steps back and wonders what their life's labour has amounted to in others' eyes. | - |
| 5 | A scholar observes that his once-private discipline has become a popular fashion that everyone reads and holds opinions on. Someone finds the thing they devoted themselves to taken up and cheapened by a crowd that does not understand it. | - |
| 6 | Angered and amused by popular pseudo-science, a scholar resolves to write a parody of it so absurd the public will laugh at its own prophets. Someone offended by a popular falsehood decides to mock it, trusting that the crowd will see the joke. | - |
| 7 | A scholar brings his manuscript to an old college friend now a prosperous popular publisher, keeping its satirical purpose a secret. Someone approaches an old friend for a favour, counting on the friend being unchanged by years of success. | - |
| 8 | The publisher warns the book may be too learned to sell, but agrees to take it; the author waves off the question of payment. Someone offers their work on the strength of friendship and refuses to haggle, trusting the other to see its worth. | - |
| 9 | The publisher has rushed the book into print and congratulates the author on abandoning the scepticism of his youth. Someone discovers that the person they confided in has completely misread what they meant. | - |
| 10 | The publisher takes the parody for a sincere confession of faith; the author, realising, bursts out laughing. Someone learns their joke has been taken in earnest by exactly the audience it mocked. | exposed |
| 11 | The author explains the book is a satire; the publisher, offended, suggests it need not be read ironically at all. Someone explains their true intent and is told it hardly matters, since no one else will see it either. | - |
| 12 | The publisher offers to sell the book as sincere, promising a mass success, and asks the author to let it stand as his real conviction. Someone is offered success on condition they let the world believe something they do not believe. | tainted_money |
| 13 | The author agrees to stay silent, telling himself the joke has only grown larger and that nothing in the book will change. Someone talks themselves into a deception by calling it a bigger version of what they meant all along. | - |
| 14 | Short of money after illness, the author accepts a large advance, sure his colleagues will see through the book and his reputation will be safe. Someone in a money pinch accepts a well-paid compromise, telling themselves it will cost them nothing that matters. | tainted_money |
| 15 | The book is already printing, so resistance seems futile; his wife, having seen a glowing review, asks why he kept it from her. Someone who has kept a compromising success from their family is confronted by a proud spouse who found out elsewhere. | - |
| 16 | The publisher's advertising campaign floods the country, making the book impossible to escape. Someone watches something they quietly agreed to grow far larger and louder than they ever meant. | - |
| 17 | The author hides in his work on publication day, then reads a serious review praising his mock platitudes as noble truths. Someone embarrassed by their own success reads praise for the very thing they meant as a sham. | exposed |
| 18 | Every paper follows the first review, and the publisher predicts the book will sell for years; the author is alarmed by its staying power. Someone who accepted a passing embarrassment learns it will follow them for years. | exposed |
| 19 | The publisher praises the book's sentiment and pays more; the author, pestered by journalists, is asked by his wife whether interviews pay. Someone resisting the demands of fame finds their family eager for the money it could bring. | - |
| 20 | His wife confesses their son has run into debt since the book's fame; the author offers to write a lucrative popular series to cover it. Someone's family has run up costs on the strength of their success, and the only quick remedy is more of what they despise. | - |
| 21 | Having sworn not to extend the fraud, the author begins the popular series within the hour, mainly to be rid of his wife's demands. Someone breaks their own resolution because giving in is the quickest way to get peace at home. | keep_the_peace |
| 22 | Fame opens society to the author; charmed by clever women, he grows used to telling how the book first came to him. Someone enjoying the attention their false reputation brings slips into living the part. | tainted_money |
| 23 | The author gives paid interviews on every subject and lends his face to advertisements, which keeps his household solvent. Someone sells their name more and more freely because it keeps the household comfortable. | tainted_money |
| 24 | The author leads a double life, courted by the public while his real research goes on unnoticed by colleagues who ignore the book. Someone keeps a public persona and a private vocation apart, and wonders what their peers really think. | - |
| 25 | The author's earnings buy him instruments for real research; nearing a genuine discovery, he confides it to one trusted colleague. Someone uses ill-gotten means to fund their real ambition and needs an honest judge to test it. | - |
| 26 | A colleague urges him to drop everything and write his serious book; the author asks his publisher for an advance and is refused. Someone ready to do their real work finds the backer they relied on now wants something first. | strings_attached |
| 27 | The publisher says the old book is fading and offers a big advance only for a sequel; the author declares he will write a serious book instead. Someone is offered money to repeat a sham and must choose between it and the real work they want to do. | tainted_money |
| 28 | Warned that popularity perishes, the author wavers, takes the advance on the sequel, and tells himself the serious book can wait six months. Someone who meant to refuse a tempting compromise gives in, promising themselves it is only a delay. | tainted_money |
1. The Other Two 7,343 words, 29 scenes
| 29 | A newly married man waits eagerly for his wife on their first evening in his own house. Someone starting a new life with a partner hopes the fresh start will be as happy as it feels. | - |
| 30 | The honeymoon is cut short by the illness of the wife's daughter from her first marriage; the husband takes comfort in his wife's calm. Someone's new household is disrupted at once by a crisis inherited from their partner's past. | old_attachment |
| 31 | The husband recalls the gossip about his wife's obscure origins and first divorce, which society chose to blame on the unknown first husband. Someone has married a person with a talked-about past and has chosen to believe the kindest version of it. | new_and_warned |
| 32 | The wife's second marriage bought her social standing, ended in a divorce that made her sympathetic, and friends doubted the wisdom of her third. Someone goes ahead with a choice that friends openly warn against, confident they know better. | new_and_warned |
| 33 | The wife arrives worried: her first husband's lawyer has written about his right to see the child. Someone's comfortable new start is interrupted by a claim from their partner's former spouse. | old_attachment |
| 34 | The first husband has the legal right to visit his sick daughter in the new husband's house; the husband reluctantly agrees. Someone must let an unwelcome person into their home because that person has a right they cannot refuse. | old_attachment |
| 35 | Fleeing the house on the visiting day, the husband is squeezed next to his wife's second ex-husband on a crowded train and must make small talk. Someone trying to avoid one awkward encounter is thrown into another with a rival they cannot snub. | - |
| 36 | The ex-husband mentions business with the husband's ailing partner; the husband escapes the train and welcomes the extra work. Someone seeks refuge from a painful private situation in extra work. | - |
| 37 | At lunch the husband sees the ex-husband savouring his coffee with brandy and envies his ease. Someone stewing over an awkward situation watches a rival who seems not to feel it at all. | the_rival |
| 38 | The husband comes home and finds his wife serene and happy, having apparently put the day's visitor out of mind. Someone troubled by a situation finds their partner untroubled and wonders what that means. | - |
| 39 | His wife says she let the nurse receive the visitor, then absent-mindedly pours brandy into her husband's coffee as her ex-husband took it, and blushes. Someone catches an unintended glimpse of their partner's past habits and cannot un-see it. | old_attachment |
| 40 | The husband's ill partner asks him to handle an important deal for his wife's ex-husband; for the firm's sake he agrees. Someone is asked by a superior to serve a person they would rather avoid, and cannot refuse without harming the firm. | civil_to_them |
| 41 | The ex-husband behaves well in the meeting and lets slip that he was once desperate for money; the husband is glad to seem the steadier man. Someone forced to do business with a rival tries to come out of it looking the more composed. | civil_to_them |
| 42 | Coming home unexpectedly, the husband finds his wife's first husband, a mild shabby man, waiting in his library. Someone comes face to face with a person they had imagined as a villain and finds them harmless. | - |
| 43 | The husband is polite to the first husband, then retreats upset that this man has the run of his house. Someone must be civil to a person whose very presence in their home they resent. | civil_to_them |
| 44 | Seeing the first husband's cheap manners, the husband pictures his wife's humble former life and is disturbed by how completely she has left it behind. Someone glimpses their partner's hidden origins and begins to doubt who they really married. | what_they_hid |
| 45 | The husband suspects his wife misrepresented her first marriage; later the first husband asks to speak to him about the child's governess. Someone begins to suspect a partner of misleading them, just as the person misled about asks for their help. | - |
| 46 | The first husband reveals he did see the wife on the first visit, exposing her lie, and says the governess is making the girl dishonest. Someone learns from an outsider that their partner lied to them, while being asked to intervene in a family matter. | what_they_hid |
| 47 | The first husband asserts his legal right to a voice in the girl's upbringing; the husband, learning of the man's sacrifices for his daughter, grows uneasy about his wife's account. Someone must pass on a claim from a person they have come to respect, against their own partner's wishes. | plead_their_case |
| 48 | The wife calls the first husband ungentlemanly and cries; the husband sees she knew his rights all along and expects to be pitied. Someone presses a partner to honour an obligation, and the partner responds with tears instead of answers. | - |
| 49 | The first husband uses his rights modestly; meanwhile the husband must keep meeting the second ex-husband on business he cannot pass on. Someone must keep working closely with a person they would rather avoid, because their position demands it. | civil_to_them |
| 50 | The husband finds his wife chatting with her second ex-husband at a ball; she offers to do whatever he wishes about speaking to him. Someone finds their partner on friendly terms with a former lover and is offered whatever rule they want to set. | - |
| 51 | Sickened by his wife's endless pliancy, the husband agrees she should be civil; society praises her for smoothing an awkward situation. Someone realises the partner they admired for ease simply gives way to everyone, and must decide whether to mind. | keep_the_peace |
| 52 | The husband feels he owns only a share in his wife, with her former husbands as partners, and resents her tactful acquiescence. Someone feels they hold only part of a person whose loyalties are shared with others from their past. | old_attachment |
| 53 | Habit dulls the husband's objections; he reckons that his predecessors trained his wife to make him comfortable. Someone trades their scruples for comfort, little by little, and learns to call it a bargain. | tainted_money |
| 54 | The husband comes to accept the first husband's visits, and one evening offers him a cigar and a seat by the fire. Someone who once resented an intruder finds themselves at ease with him. | - |
| 55 | The second ex-husband arrives unannounced on business while the first husband sits there; all three men stand awkwardly as tea is laid out. Someone is caught in a room with two people from their partner's past, and no one knows how to behave. | old_attachment |
| 56 | The wife enters, greets both former husbands graciously, and the three men stand awkward before her. Someone must host, in one room, people whose claims on them conflict. | - |
| 57 | The wife smooths the moment by pouring tea for all three men, and the husband takes his cup with a laugh. Someone in an absurd position chooses to laugh and go along rather than make a scene. | keep_the_peace |
2. Expiation 8,120 words, 30 scenes
| 58 | A society wife who has just published a daring novel dreads the arrival of press clippings now that her uncle, a bishop, is in town. Someone who has done something bold in public dreads the moment a disapproving elder relative hears of it. | exposed |
| 59 | She complains that her husband is embarrassingly proud of the book and will read the reviews aloud to visitors; she fears a scandal. Someone is mortified that their spouse's naive enthusiasm will expose them in front of the people they fear. | - |
| 60 | She insists her provocative title is honest, not commercial, and fears she has dragged her husband's name through the mire. Someone who meant to provoke now worries about what it will cost the family whose name they used. | - |
| 61 | She says using a pen-name would be cowardice; her cousin, a hard-up hack writer, says an attack from the press would make her rich. Someone proud of their courage is told bluntly that the risk they fear is exactly what would bring success. | - |
| 62 | She claims to speak for unhappy women; her divorced cousin warns that women with a past avoid stirring up mud. The bishop's arrival terrifies her. Someone claims to speak for others who have suffered, and is warned by one of them that it may not be welcome. | - |
| 63 | The bishop arrives; he favours this niece over her cousin, whose cheap books outsell his own and who refused his advice during her divorce. Someone in authority rewards the relative who flatters them and resents the one who went her own way. | the_rival |
| 64 | Left alone with the bishop, the novelist feigns interest in his book to deflect talk of her own, and gets its plot wrong. Someone tries to steer an elder away from a dangerous topic by flattering them, and is caught not knowing their work. | civil_to_them |
| 65 | The bishop says his devout book was praised only by a friend who owed him favours, and that its best hope would be a public denunciation. Someone admits the only thing that would help their failing work is a public scandal they cannot decently arrange. | - |
| 66 | The bishop explains that a charge of immorality would sell thousands, needed to fund a church window he has at heart. Someone needs money for a cause and wishes they could be attacked in public to get it. | - |
| 67 | The niece blurts out her own fear of not being read; the bishop turns to her novel and asks her to change its title. Someone betrays their own worry and is immediately asked by an elder to tone down their work. | - |
| 68 | The bishop assumes the title was forced on her or chosen innocently, and warns it will offend the readers she should value. Someone is lectured by an elder who assumes they could not have meant to give offence. | - |
| 69 | She means to defend her choice but, under the bishop's certainty, begins apologising instead; her husband walks in. Someone who meant to stand by their choice finds themselves backing down before an elder's authority. | keep_the_peace |
| 70 | The husband bursts in waving the first review, delighted that the bishop is there to hear it. Someone's eager spouse forces a private worry into the open before exactly the wrong witness. | exposed |
| 71 | The narrator explains that the novelist suffers from a husband who admires everything she does without understanding it. Someone is frustrated by a spouse whose unconditional approval makes nothing they do matter. | unseen_at_home |
| 72 | She wrote the book partly to provoke her husband's disapproval, but he adores it and presses it on everyone. Someone tries to provoke a reaction from a partner and gets only praise, which defeats the purpose. | unseen_at_home |
| 73 | The husband reads the review aloud in front of the bishop; it begins by denouncing the filth of modern fiction. Someone must sit through a public verdict on their work in front of the person they most wanted to keep it from. | exposed |
| 74 | The review calls her novel sweetly harmless; weeks later her cousin finds her crushed. Someone who wanted to shock is dismissed as harmless, which wounds more than condemnation would. | exposed |
| 75 | She reveals that every review has called her daring book a pretty, inoffensive story. Someone who staked their pride on being taken seriously finds everyone treats them as tame. | - |
| 76 | The cousin says the bishop blessed the book to bury it, and suggests the bishop could make it sell by denouncing it. Someone learns that a rival's approval was a way of smothering them, and is advised to provoke an attack instead. | - |
| 77 | The cousin explains that nobody reads books any more, only puffs, and that only a denunciation from pulpit or press will sell one. Someone is told that merit counts for nothing and that the way to succeed is to engineer a scandal. | - |
| 78 | Months later, a famous novelist travelling with her mocks the bishop who publicly attacked her book; she defends her uncle's sense of duty. Someone who has quietly benefited from a public attack defends the attacker's motives to an outsider. | - |
| 79 | Her book has sold a hundred and fifty thousand; strangers recognise and praise her courage on the train. Someone enjoys a success whose real origin they cannot admit to the people praising them. | tainted_money |
| 80 | The bishop's devoted friend tells her the bishop believes the anonymous gift of the window rewarded his courage in denouncing her book. Someone hears a rival take credit for an outcome they secretly paid for. | - |
| 81 | The friend praises her forgiveness and hints that others think the bishop's attack was deserved. Someone must smile through backhanded praise from people who think they were rightly punished. | - |
| 82 | In the cathedral she enjoys the attention of the congregation and the press, which she owes to the bishop's denunciation. Someone savours public attention that exists only because of an arrangement nobody else knows about. | - |
| 83 | She plans a more outspoken second novel; the bishop begins his address celebrating the window's mysterious donor. Someone emboldened by success prepares to go further, while waiting to hear how their secret part is described. | - |
| 84 | The bishop hints that the donor was a woman and that a book played its part, and eyes turn to her. Someone fears a public speaker is about to reveal the secret deal they struck. | exposed |
| 85 | Under everyone's gaze she blushes and panics while the bishop expounds on the power of novels for good or ill. Someone sits exposed to public attention, waiting to learn whether they are about to be named. | exposed |
| 86 | She nearly walks out, then learns the bishop is crediting his own book with inspiring the gift. Someone expecting to be exposed instead hears another person take all the credit for what they did. | - |
| 87 | A fellow writer guesses she paid for the window herself; she half denies it, indignant that the bishop claims credit. Someone who secretly bought a favour cannot claim credit for it without admitting the bargain. | tainted_money |
3. The Lady's Maid's Bell 8,682 words, 32 scenes
| 88 | A servant weakened by illness and nearly out of money is offered a place by a kindly former acquaintance. Someone down on their luck and unable to find work is offered a way back by a well-wisher. | - |
| 89 | The patron warns that the house is gloomy, the mistress an invalid who lost her children, and the last maid is dead; the servant accepts. Someone who badly needs a place takes one they have been frankly warned will be hard. | strings_attached |
| 90 | Told to keep out of the master's way, the servant travels to a large dark country house and is received by the cook. Someone arrives at a new post with an unexplained warning about the person in charge. | new_and_warned |
| 91 | On her way to her room she sees a pale woman in the passage; the housemaid scolds about a room across the hall that must stay locked. Someone new to a household notices something odd that the others refuse to discuss. | new_and_warned |
| 92 | The other servants praise the mistress; the maid meets her and is instantly devoted. Someone meets a new employer and feels an immediate loyalty they did not expect. | - |
| 93 | The mistress never uses the bell to her maid's room, always sending the housemaid instead. Someone new notices an unexplained habit in how they are treated and cannot ask why. | - |
| 94 | No one admits to seeing the pale woman; the cook grows confused when asked where the last maid slept. Someone asks innocent questions and finds the people around them evasive. | - |
| 95 | The cook begs her not to use the locked room, the dead maid's, and refuses to describe her; the master's arrival puts the household on edge. Someone senses a household secret, and everyone they ask shuts the conversation down. | new_and_warned |
| 96 | The master, a coarse, leering man, looks the maid over and dismisses her; the mistress goes cold in his presence and brightens when he leaves. Someone in service must work around a master everyone fears and the mistress shrinks from. | civil_to_them |
| 97 | A gentle neighbour who shares the mistress's love of books is her only company in winter, and the servants all like him. Someone lonely in an unhappy marriage finds comfort in one kind friend. | unseen_at_home |
| 98 | The master comes and goes, drinks heavily and grumbles; the servants hint the match was unhappy from the start. Someone watches their employer endure a spouse's coarseness and can say nothing. | civil_to_them |
| 99 | The maid's duties are light and the mistress kind, but she feels a weight whenever she re-enters the house. Someone in a comfortable position cannot shake a sense of dread they cannot explain. | - |
| 100 | Shut in by rain, the maid grows nervous about the locked room; on a trip to town she meets an old colleague who reacts to her employer's name. Someone uneasy in their post learns that others have heard things about it. | - |
| 101 | The colleague says four maids have left in six months; back at the house the master has arrived and the cook is relieved she returned. Someone hears their predecessors all quit, and finds the staff relieved they did not. | new_and_warned |
| 102 | The cook begs her to be good to the mistress; the maid overhears the master jealously accusing his wife over the neighbour. Someone overhears a jealous quarrel between their employers and must pretend not to have. | - |
| 103 | Uneasy after a tense dinner, the maid is woken at night by her bell ringing for the first time. Someone is called in the night by a summons that should not have come. | - |
| 104 | She hears the locked room open and steps hurry ahead of her; at her mistress's door the master answers, asking how many of them there are. Someone answering a call at night must walk where something frightening has just gone, and is met by a hostile master. | - |
| 105 | The mistress, weak, calls the maid by the dead maid's name; next morning she sends her secretly to fetch medicine and carry a note to the neighbour. Someone is sent on a discreet errand that seems meant to be hidden from the head of the house. | keep_their_secret |
| 106 | Fearing the mistress means to poison herself, the maid rushes to the chemist and learns the medicine is harmless. Someone fears their employer means to harm themselves, and checks quietly without betraying them. | - |
| 107 | Wondering whether the note was the secret errand, the maid delivers it; the master confronts her and she lies to protect her mistress. Someone is questioned by a suspicious superior and must decide whether to lie to protect another. | keep_their_secret |
| 108 | Afraid to stay yet unwilling to abandon her mistress, the maid finds a photograph of the dead maid and recognises the pale woman. Someone who wants to flee a frightening post stays out of loyalty, and then finds proof their fear was real. | - |
| 109 | The cook deflects when shown the photograph; the master stays on, taunting his wife about the neighbour's absence. Someone who brings evidence to a colleague is brushed off, while the tension in the household grows. | - |
| 110 | The neighbour calls and all seem friendly, but the maid lies awake each night, dreading the silence of the locked room, and cannot bring herself to leave. Someone lives in constant dread at their post yet cannot make themselves give notice. | - |
| 111 | The mistress grows weaker and more dependent on the maid; with the master away the servants joke about him. Someone becomes the only support of a failing employer and feels bound to stay. | - |
| 112 | On a cheerful afternoon, for once at ease, the maid looks up and sees the dead maid standing in her doorway. Someone who has just let their guard down is confronted with the thing they feared. | - |
| 113 | The apparition looks at her pleadingly and leads her out of the house into the snow. Someone is silently begged for help by a figure who cannot say what it needs. | - |
| 114 | The figure, leaving no footprints, leads her to the neighbour's gate and waits for her to act. Someone is led to a place where they must act, without knowing what they are meant to do. | - |
| 115 | The neighbour comes out cheerfully; the figure vanishes, and the maid faints, unable to guess the warning. Someone given a warning they cannot interpret is left alone with a secret they cannot name. | - |
| 116 | She makes an excuse to the neighbour, returns home, is sent to bed, and at night hears a door open below. Someone covering for what they saw goes to bed uneasy, sure something is about to happen. | waiting_on_them |
| 117 | Her bell rings; she sees the apparition at the stairhead and hears a key in the front door; the mistress, still dressed, denies ringing and sends her away. Someone who comes to help is sent away by the person they came for, who is plainly hiding something. | - |
| 118 | The maid warns that the master has returned; the mistress collapses, and the master pushes past, heading for the dressing room to meet a friend. Someone must try to stop a furious spouse bursting in on what he believes is a betrayal. | - |
| 119 | The apparition appears in the doorway; the master recoils; the mistress dies. At the funeral the master glares at the pale neighbour, then leaves. Someone who tried to shield their employer's secret sees the confrontation end in death all the same. | - |
4. The Mission of Jane 6,645 words, 25 scenes
| 120 | A clever, condescending husband notices his simple wife glowing and teases her into admitting she has done something he will not like. Someone senses their spouse is hiding something and teases it out of them. | what_they_hid |
| 121 | The wife, who holds only inherited opinions, says she expects his disapproval and has allowed for it, then announces 'a baby'. Someone who has always given way to a spouse announces a wish they know will be opposed. | - |
| 122 | Baffled, the husband learns she wants the child to be theirs and has long grieved at being childless. Someone discovers that their spouse has carried a deep disappointment they never noticed. | what_they_hid |
| 123 | The wife confesses her loneliness and that she chose nursery wallpaper years ago; the husband feels he has failed her. Someone realises their neglect has left a partner lonely for years. | unseen_at_home |
| 124 | She asks to adopt an orphan from a hospital, promising it will never bother him. Someone asks a reluctant partner for the one thing they want, promising it will cost the partner nothing. | - |
| 125 | The husband agrees without resistance, accepting future ridicule as penance for having underestimated his wife. Someone agrees to a partner's wish they would normally mock, as a way of making amends. | give_it_up |
| 126 | The husband reflects that he has been faithful but emotionally absent, keeping his wife out of his inner life. Someone who has kept the letter of a commitment realises they have neglected its spirit. | unseen_at_home |
| 127 | At the hospital the wife is transfigured by the child; the husband feels invisible to her. Someone watches their partner's devotion shift wholly to someone new and feels shut out. | unseen_at_home |
| 128 | The husband allows a legal adoption but refuses to let the child be renamed, and begins to regret the whole business. Someone who has given way on the big question digs in on a small one and starts to regret giving way. | - |
| 129 | The child is quiet and healthy; the wife's character is not changed but magnified by motherhood. Someone finds a change they dreaded is milder than feared, but it makes a partner more of what they already were. | - |
| 130 | The wife grows assertive and treats the husband as the child's father; he accepts it because she is happy. Someone is drawn into a role they never chose, and puts up with it because it makes a partner happy. | keep_the_peace |
| 131 | The child does not bring the couple together; the wife's personality expands until the husband is squeezed into a corner of his own home. Someone gives ground at home again and again until they have almost no room left. | keep_the_peace |
| 132 | The girl grows healthy and good, and the wife, feeling unequal to her, asks the husband to take charge of her education. Someone who feels out of their depth hands a responsibility to a partner they consider more capable. | - |
| 133 | The wife humbly admits she is too stupid to know what is best for the child and asks the husband to decide. Someone admits they are not up to a task and asks another to take it on. | - |
| 134 | The girl hoards facts without understanding and grows proud and superior; the wife hopes she will be a companion for the husband. Someone takes on a protégé who turns out to be clever but cold and conceited. | - |
| 135 | The girl sets about reforming the whole household, driving off cooks and lecturing the husband until he dines out. Someone at home is bossed and corrected by a young person who has made themselves everyone's guardian. | - |
| 136 | The husband's attempts to check her only hurt his wife; the girl, pretty but charmless, fails in society despite great expense. Someone cannot rein in a difficult young person without wounding the partner who adores them. | keep_the_peace |
| 137 | The girl takes her failure out on her mother, then turns to charity and makes the husband her evening project. Someone watches a young person take out their disappointment on a devoted parent, then turn it on them. | - |
| 138 | The wife asks him to bear the girl's attentions; then a young man starts calling, and the parents hardly dare hope he comes for her. Someone longing to be free of a burden sees a chance of it and dares not say so. | - |
| 139 | An effusively polite young man courts the girl; the parents pretend not to notice while she shows no emotion at all. Someone hoping for a match that would relieve them must pretend indifference while it hangs in the balance. | waiting_on_them |
| 140 | He proposes, and the girl demands a month to think it over, to her parents' agony. Someone longs for a decision that is entirely in another's hands, and that person insists on delaying it. | waiting_on_them |
| 141 | The girl accepts and at once begins to dominate her fiancé; the parents, pitying him, wonder whether to warn him. Someone must decide whether to warn an outsider about a relative's faults, at the risk of losing a longed-for outcome. | plead_their_case |
| 142 | The wife tells the fiancé that the girl is always difficult; he says they never understood her and grows cold, which relieves the husband. Someone who speaks an honest warning is rebuffed as disloyal, and finds the result a relief. | plead_their_case |
| 143 | The girl turns hysterical before the wedding and threatens to break it off; the husband frets over every possible mishap until the groom arrives late. Someone waits through a nerve-racking final stretch, fearing any accident could undo the outcome they need. | waiting_on_them |
| 144 | The couple leave; alone together at last, the husband and wife draw close and go out to dinner. Someone who has endured a long strain alongside a partner finds it has finally brought them together. | - |
5. The Reckoning 7,841 words, 29 scenes
| 145 | A husband gives a fashionable talk arguing that faithfulness to oneself outranks marriage vows; his wife notes that he has recently begun preaching publicly what he used to keep private. Someone watches their partner suddenly start proclaiming in public views they once kept carefully private. | exposed |
| 146 | The hosts are a couple who trade on an artistic reputation and recruit daring speakers to keep their gatherings fashionable. Someone keeps up a social position by borrowing other people's boldness. | - |
| 147 | The wife, who once urged these views on him, now finds them vulgarised, and resents the hosts' young daughter hearing such talk. Someone who once pushed a daring idea is uneasy now it is being preached, and looks for someone to blame. | exposed |
| 148 | The young woman asks the wife whether she believes it all; the wife blushes and says the girl doesn't understand. Someone is asked point-blank whether they still believe what they once championed, and cannot answer honestly. | - |
| 149 | The wife sees her husband absorbed in the young woman; walking home, he says he spoke publicly to please her, and she asks him to stop. Someone asks their partner to stop something the partner says they began only to please them. | - |
| 150 | He is solicitous, but that evening presses her to explain her objection, which she cannot. Someone is asked to justify a feeling they cannot put into words. | - |
| 151 | Looking round their home, she feels suddenly estranged; he asks whether she no longer believes the ideas their marriage was founded on. Someone is challenged by their partner over whether they still hold to the terms of their bond. | - |
| 152 | She insists she still believes, but says public talk suits only certain audiences; he reminds her they met in just such a set, and she names the young woman. Someone who has quietly changed their mind argues around it rather than admit it. | - |
| 153 | He defends the young woman's independence of mind and admits she interests him. Someone hears their partner openly confess an interest in someone else. | the_rival |
| 154 | The wife's earlier divorce was accepted by everyone; her first husband was thought impossible, and remarrying a poorer man made her look disinterested. Someone who once left a partner was praised for it, and never had to count the cost. | - |
| 155 | She recalls her first husband as a dull, self-absorbed man who shaped everything around his own needs. Someone looks back on a partner who stifled them, and half wonders whether they judged fairly. | - |
| 156 | She remembers his mute bewilderment when she left, and her conviction that a marriage kept up out of duty is a crime. Someone who once escaped a stifling bond is haunted by the hurt they left behind. | - |
| 157 | She met her second husband in the heat of her revolt; he shared her views, and they agreed either could leave when love ended. Someone enters a new commitment on the promise that either may walk away freely. | - |
| 158 | Ten years of happiness have made her possessive; she now feels their compact could not apply to them, and takes a nerve tonic. Someone finds that the freedom they insisted on would destroy them if used against them. | - |
| 159 | Her husband is unusually gentle, which frightens her; when he plans to continue the talks she reminds him she objected. Someone reads a partner's new kindness as a sign of bad news and presses for the truth. | what_they_hid |
| 160 | She says she hates hearing him say spouses may leave when tired; he reminds her that was her own reason for leaving her first husband. Someone who once used a principle for their own ends has it turned against them. | own_words_back |
| 161 | He accuses her of dropping the doctrine once it had served her, then claims her promise to release him; she says she will not go back on it. Someone is held to a promise they made when they never thought it would be used against them. | own_words_back |
| 162 | She guesses he means to marry the young woman, wishes him luck, and is left alone, feeling her home is no longer hers. Someone keeps their word with dignity and is left with nothing they thought was theirs. | - |
| 163 | Hours pass in stupor; every familiar object in the house mocks her. Someone whose life has broken apart finds everything around them unchanged and unbearable. | - |
| 164 | She considers fighting through the law or begging, but sees she is trapped by the code she herself made. Someone looks for a way to fight a loss and realises the rules trapping them are their own. | own_words_back |
| 165 | She goes to warn the young woman, finds her out, and wanders the streets. Someone rushes to warn a rival and, finding them gone, is left with nowhere to go. | the_rival |
| 166 | Faint, she takes bitter tea in a shabby eating-house and feels her mind clear. Someone at the end of their strength stops in a strange place to steady themselves. | - |
| 167 | She sees that warning the girl would have been humiliating, and walks the darkening streets not knowing what to do. Someone gives up a rash plan and is left with no idea what to do next. | - |
| 168 | She finds herself outside her first husband's house, watches him go in, and on impulse rings the bell. Someone turns up, unannounced, at the door of a person they once wronged. | old_attachment |
| 169 | She talks her way past the footman; her first husband, shocked, receives her to avoid a scene. Someone forces a meeting with a former partner who would rather not see them. | old_attachment |
| 170 | In the unchanged room he coldly suggests she speak through lawyers; she says lawyers cannot help this time. Someone asks a former partner for a hearing and is told to go through proper channels. | old_attachment |
| 171 | He braces as if for a request for money; she tells him her husband has left her because he tired of her. Someone confesses their humiliation to the very person who once suffered the same thing at their hands. | owning_up |
| 172 | He says she need not grant a divorce; she replies that he did not have to either, and asks whether he, too, never understood. Someone who once inflicted a hurt now feels it themselves, and needs the person they hurt to know it. | owning_up |
| 173 | He admits he never understood; she asks his forgiveness, shakes his hand, and leaves before he can stop her. Someone seeks forgiveness from a person they wronged, and leaves before anything more can be said. | owning_up |
6. The Letter 6,383 words, 25 scenes
| 174 | A young assistant hired to catalogue an elderly former adventurer's papers is told to get him to talk about his past, which he never discusses. Someone hired for one task is quietly asked to draw out secrets their employer keeps to himself. | - |
| 175 | Going blind, the old man begins to talk of the underground struggle for independence, where prisoners died rather than betray their friends. Someone at the end of their working life looks back on a time when loyalty was tested under threat of death. | - |
| 176 | Asked for the bravest thing a woman ever did, he says it was provoked by an act of his own he is not proud of. Someone finally admits a past act they are ashamed of, now that those it touched are dead. | owning_up |
| 177 | As a young officer he was sent to an occupied city to help its secret resistance, which carried on its social life in defiance. Someone sent to aid a secret cause enjoys the danger and the society it brings. | - |
| 178 | He fell in love with a widowed noblewoman prominent in the cause, whose family had been ruined by a ruler's betrayal of his own conspirators. Someone falls for a person devoted to a cause, whose family history is steeped in betrayal. | - |
| 179 | Her teenage brother was hanged on flimsy evidence after the failed conspiracy, and her mother never recovered. Someone's family is broken by an innocent relative's execution on the flimsiest pretext. | - |
| 180 | The daughter, rejecting her mother's brooding, threw herself into the cause after an unhappy marriage and worked for it with great discretion. Someone channels grief and an unhappy marriage into secret work for a cause. | - |
| 181 | Mother and daughter both work for the cause, the mother for vengeance and the daughter for the country, and the daughter reveres her mother's suffering. Someone supports a grieving parent whose motives for the shared cause are narrower than their own. | - |
| 182 | The daughter says her mother is tormented that her son alone left no farewell letter; all her bribes to find one failed. Someone longs to bring a grieving parent the one comfort they cannot obtain. | - |
| 183 | The narrator understands that last letters from the executed were treasured and shared, and that the mother's lack of one isolates her. Someone grieving is shut out of the comfort every other bereaved family shares. | - |
| 184 | She loved another, a leading patriot devoted only to the cause, whose father had been physician to the prisons where her brother died. Someone loves a person who loves only their cause, and a rival stands between them and their own hopes. | - |
| 185 | The patriot conspired safely under cover of his loyal father's position; she shared his caution and hid fugitives for him. Someone plays a double life for years, their loyalty hidden behind a respectable front. | - |
| 186 | The narrator, jealous, accused her of leading him on and sneered at her hero; they parted in anger. Someone rejected for a rival lashes out at the person they want, and loses them. | the_rival |
| 187 | After the city rises and is freed, the wounded narrator, sulking, goes to help the new government sort the fallen ruler's archives. Someone who has quarrelled with the person they love takes on a new task rather than make the first move. | - |
| 188 | In the archives he finds the hanged boy's farewell letter, marked as handed to the warder by his rival. Someone stumbles on proof that could destroy a rival and feels the power it gives them. | the_rival |
| 189 | He reasons that the rival must have surrendered the letter to curry favour, and so must be a traitor. Someone tempted by jealousy convinces themselves that a rival's old act proves him a traitor. | the_rival |
| 190 | Ignoring the rival's long record of courage, the narrator rushes back in anger to the woman he loves. Someone lets jealousy override their judgement and hurries to use damaging evidence. | the_rival |
| 191 | He calculates that the letter, bound to be published at a coming commemoration, would ruin the rival, and cannot honourably withhold it. Someone holds evidence they cannot honourably keep back, and knows handing it over will destroy a rival. | - |
| 192 | He gives her the letter; overjoyed, she kisses his hands, thinking of the comfort it will bring her mother. Someone delivers joyful news knowing that a bitter revelation comes attached to it. | - |
| 193 | He tells her who gave up the letter; she coolly asks for proof and does not cry out against the man she loves. Someone confronts another with damning evidence about the person they love, and meets calm disbelief. | what_they_hid |
| 194 | She asks him on his honour whether the note could be a later forgery; he says no, and she accepts the evidence without condemning her hero. Someone asks a rival for an honest answer that may condemn the person they trust, and gets it. | - |
| 195 | He presses the point that her hero betrayed a friend; she replies that she understands, and that he could not have done otherwise. Someone pushes another to condemn a person they love, and is told the act was justified. | - |
| 196 | She argues that bringing the letter would have endangered the cause, so the boy's friend rightly put the country first. Someone defends a painful betrayal as a necessary sacrifice for a greater cause. | - |
| 197 | Convinced despite himself, he asks why the hero never told her; she asks him to keep the letter secret from everyone, even her mother. Someone is asked to keep a secret that will deny a grieving person the comfort they long for. | keep_their_secret |
| 198 | She burns the letter rather than risk her mother's anger ruining the hero, and says she can never tell him what she has done for him. Someone gives up the thing their own family most needs to protect a person who will never know. | give_it_up |
7. The Dilettante 3,578 words, 13 scenes
| 199 | A newly engaged man drops in on the woman he has long kept as an intimate friend, meaning to talk over her meeting with his fiancée. Someone who has moved on to a new commitment returns to an old intimate as if nothing had changed. | old_attachment |
| 200 | He prides himself on an art of evading declared feeling, having once been burdened by an avowed love. Someone who once regretted committing themselves now takes pleasure in never committing to anyone. | - |
| 201 | He trained his friend over years to hide her feelings and follow his lead in every evasion. Someone has shaped another person to fit their convenience and admires the result. | - |
| 202 | She received his fiancée perfectly; he regrets having announced the engagement by letter, as if he had doubted her. Someone realises that a cautious move of theirs betrayed distrust of a person who deserved better. | owning_up |
| 203 | Missing his candid fiancée, he calls to talk about her and delights in the fresh feelings she stirs in him. Someone newly in love seeks out an old confidant to share it, without thinking what it costs them. | - |
| 204 | His friend is startled to see him and speaks of this as a last visit; he insists nothing has changed. Someone expects an old arrangement to continue and is told it is ending. | old_attachment |
| 205 | She reveals that his fiancée came to see her a second time that morning, which he did not know. Someone learns that the person they are about to marry went behind their back to an old intimate. | what_they_hid |
| 206 | She pities him and hints that a letter may await him; the fiancée came to find out whether anything had happened between them. Someone discovers their fiancée has been asking about their past with another person. | what_they_hid |
| 207 | He protests that a man's past is his own; she says the fiancée objects even to a mere friendship, and came to see whether he was really free. Someone who thought their past was their own business finds it standing in the way of their future. | old_attachment |
| 208 | Told there had never been an affair, the fiancée was more disturbed, not less: the offence was that nothing had happened. Someone who thought themselves innocent learns the harm lay in what they withheld. | - |
| 209 | The friend confesses she loved him all along; the fiancée saw that he used her and cast her aside, and despised them both. Someone is made to see, through an outsider's eyes, how they have used another person's devotion. | owning_up |
| 210 | The fiancée wants a man capable of love, not reservations; the friend offers to say she lied, and let him claim a past with her. Someone who has been used offers to sacrifice their own name to save the person who used them. | give_it_up |
| 211 | Moved, he refuses her sacrifice, saying it would only harm his fiancée; she tells him the fiancée has surely recalled her letter. Someone offered an easy escape at another's expense refuses it, and learns they may not need one. | give_it_up |
8. The Quicksand 6,406 words, 25 scenes
| 212 | A mother devoted to her perfect son senses from his walk that he is coming home to tell her something. Someone whose whole life centres on one person senses that person is in trouble and waits to be told. | waiting_on_them |
| 213 | In her exquisite house the son slumps by the fire, defeated, and she feels suddenly a stranger to him. Someone sees a person they know intimately in an unfamiliar state and feels shut out. | - |
| 214 | The son says the girl he loves has refused him on principle, because he owns a scandalous newspaper. Someone is turned down by the person they love because of the source of their income. | - |
| 215 | The girl wants him to give up the paper or run it honestly at a loss; he mocks her fashionable ethics. Someone is asked to give up their livelihood as the price of being loved. | strings_attached |
| 216 | Mother and son agree one cannot change oneself; the girl cites the mother's own example, and the mother notes the girl's family has never called on her. Someone is held up as an example in an argument they would rather not be drawn into. | - |
| 217 | The girl admires the mother's goodness; the mother, angry, is told her son is not asking her to make the girl love him. Someone resents a person who has hurt their child, and is asked not to show it. | civil_to_them |
| 218 | The son asks his mother to visit the girl and show her that the paper has never touched her life. Someone is asked by the person they love most to plead a case they privately doubt. | plead_their_case |
| 219 | The mother calls at the girl's plain, comfortless home and reads failure in the furniture. Someone goes to plead on another's behalf in a place where they feel they have no footing. | plead_their_case |
| 220 | The girl is immovable; she says it is the mother's own beautiful example that confirms her refusal. Someone tries to persuade a person of firm principle, and their own example is used against them. | plead_their_case |
| 221 | The mother argues that the girl is sacrificing her son to an idea; the girl says she is sacrificing herself. Someone argues with a young person who insists on giving up happiness for a principle. | give_it_up |
| 222 | The mother pleads that life is made of compromises and love outweighs theories; the girl says that is exactly why she cannot. Someone urges a younger person to compromise, and is told their plea proves the danger. | own_words_back |
| 223 | Six months later the son has buried his grief in the paper, and the mother seeks refuge in a gallery of paintings. Someone who cannot help a suffering child looks for solace of their own. | - |
| 224 | The unspoken subject has driven mother and son apart; in the gallery she meets the girl. Someone cut off from a loved one by an unspoken hurt comes face to face with its cause. | - |
| 225 | The girl looks worn and unhappy; the mother offers her a lift, is refused, and turns away. Someone reaches out to a former adversary and is coldly rebuffed. | - |
| 226 | The girl confesses she followed the mother there, has been unhappy, and now believes the mother was right; she asks whether the son still cares. Someone who once refused an offer comes back to say they have changed their mind, and asks if it still stands. | waiting_on_them |
| 227 | The mother says she too has suffered, and now admits the girl was right and she was wrong. Someone who argued for a compromise now confesses they knew all along it was wrong. | owning_up |
| 228 | The girl believes love alone could change the son; the mother says she once said the same, before marrying his father. Someone about to make a hopeful sacrifice is told by an older person that they made the same one and regret it. | owning_up |
| 229 | The mother says she speaks because the girl is as alive as she once was, and she cannot watch her be walled up. Someone breaks a lifetime's silence to save a younger person from their own fate. | give_it_up |
| 230 | She married without knowing what the paper was, enjoyed its money, then learned it traded in exposing private scandal. Someone discovers that the comfort they have enjoyed is paid for by something shameful. | tainted_money |
| 231 | The girl tries to stop her from going on. Someone watching another confess something painful wants to spare them. | - |
| 232 | Her husband promised to sell the paper in time, but her delicate son's life depended on the money, and she sank deeper with each compromise. Someone who meant to refuse tainted money comes to depend on it to save a person they love. | tainted_money |
| 233 | She tried to purify the money through charity and to hide the paper from her son behind beauty; on her husband's death she hoped the son would sell it. Someone who compromised long ago pins their hope of release on the next generation. | tainted_money |
| 234 | At twenty-one the son refused to sell, loving the power the paper gave; she saw he was what her concessions had made him. Someone finds that the person they raised has embraced the very thing they wanted to escape. | - |
| 235 | She gave up the struggle and learned to look only at the side of her son that was hers. Someone makes peace with a loved one's flaw by refusing to look at it. | keep_the_peace |
| 236 | She warns that the son's love would never change him and that the girl would slowly die as she did; she asks what to tell him, and leaves. Someone lays bare their own ruin to warn another, then leaves them to make the choice alone. | give_it_up |
9. A Venetian Night's Entertainment 6,831 words, 25 scenes
| 237 | An old man's tale begins with his younger self, just of age, sighting a fabled foreign city from his father's merchant ship. Someone young and newly free arrives in a place they have dreamed of all their life. | - |
| 238 | The youth recalls a childhood print of the city's crowded square, full of foreigners, performers and pickpockets. Someone brings a child's romantic picture of a place to the real thing. | - |
| 239 | The city has always stood in his mind for a place of magic where the rules of his strict upbringing do not hold. Someone raised under strict rules longs for a place where the rules do not apply. | - |
| 240 | His tutor insists on finishing a sermon before going ashore; the youth slips away alone. Someone under a guardian's supervision slips away to do what they want. | - |
| 241 | In the crowded square he overpays a pedlar through ignorance of the coinage, and a pleasant English-speaking stranger offers help. Someone who shows they are a naive newcomer with money is approached by a helpful stranger. | new_and_warned |
| 242 | The friendly stranger, calling himself a count, shows him the town and points out its great personages in their odd costumes. Someone new in a strange place gratefully accepts a guide whose credentials they cannot check. | new_and_warned |
| 243 | Bound to return by sunset, he gives the count a costly gift, is led into the cathedral, and meets a pretty girl whose dress catches on his sword. Someone who has promised to be back on time lets a new acquaintance talk them into one more detour. | - |
| 244 | The count names her as a senator's daughter; a page slips the youth a note begging his help, and an officer seizes him. Someone receives a secret appeal for help and is immediately caught holding it. | exposed |
| 245 | The count warns him the officer serves the dreaded council and that the letter compromises a great family, and arranges for him to be taken privately to the father. Someone accused of an offence they do not understand is steered by a friend towards a private settlement. | - |
| 246 | He asks to send word to his ship and is refused; the count urges him not to resist. Someone being led away is denied the chance to tell anyone where they are. | - |
| 247 | He breaks free and runs, is cornered in an alley, and is pulled through a gate by a servant girl. Someone who has escaped their captors is cornered, and must trust an unknown rescuer. | - |
| 248 | He is led to the girl from the cathedral, who seems dismayed to see him; the page was her maid in disguise. Someone who answered a call for help is told they were not the one it was meant for. | - |
| 249 | She says the letter was meant for an ambassador to save her from a forced marriage; her father is heard coming. Someone learns they have been caught up in another person's desperate plan by mistake. | - |
| 250 | The father and his noble friends burst in with drawn swords; the count arrives and mediates, and says the youth is in great trouble. Someone is confronted by an angry family and depends on a go-between who speaks for them. | - |
| 251 | He is accused of secret correspondence with the girl, now repudiated by her betrothed; he refuses to hide behind her word. Someone accused of compromising another must defend themselves without exposing them. | keep_their_secret |
| 252 | Asked to clear her by showing the letter, he sees her silently beg him not to. Someone could clear themselves by producing evidence, but the person it would expose begs them not to. | keep_their_secret |
| 253 | He refuses to show his private letters; the count says honour now demands he marry the girl. Someone who keeps another's secret is told the price is a lifelong obligation. | own_words_back |
| 254 | He is told he must marry her within the hour, and is locked in with her while the chaplain is fetched. Someone is trapped and given an hour before a forced commitment they never sought. | own_words_back |
| 255 | She weeps with shame, thanks him for keeping her secret, and says her father is forcing her to marry a brute. Someone trapped alongside another hears their tale of being forced into a match and wants to save them. | - |
| 256 | She says she cannot be saved but he can, if he will do as she says without looking at her. Someone is offered a way out, provided they accept terms they will not like. | strings_attached |
| 257 | She explains that everyone involved can be bought, and begs him to offer a ransom to go free. Someone learns they can buy their way out of a trap, and that is exactly what the trap was for. | strings_attached |
| 258 | He offers to marry her himself instead; she refuses and insists she must marry the other man. Someone offers themselves to rescue another and is refused. | give_it_up |
| 259 | He declares his love; she kisses him, takes a trinket from his watch-chain, and laughs strangely that she will get none of the money. Someone who has fallen for another begins to sense they are being played. | what_they_hid |
| 260 | He realises the whole thing was a swindle; she admits it but says her love was real, just as his ship's captain and tutor arrive with the police. Someone discovers they were the mark in a confidence trick just as rescue arrives. | what_they_hid |
| 261 | The captain exposes the tricksters as known confidence men, softens towards the girl, and takes the youth back to his ship. Someone who has been swindled is rescued by their elders and must walk away from a person they had fallen for. | - |