Nine of the best book quotes from The Secret of the White Peacock
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“What happens when she reveals her secret, how she is involved with plots about which she never guessed, and how she is helped and befriended by some of the delightful characters who come into earlier books..”
“Laurette finds her guardian a fierce, lonely man, with only one great desire in life. This is to discover a mysterious formula that would make him, as he tells her, ‘master of the world’.”
“Laurette’s sobs subsided as with deft hands Philippine disentangled the mop of dark hair and brushed it till it shone. ‘Lovely hair you’ve got,’ the girl commented, ‘so thick and soft. Now you’d better bathe your eyes so’s no one will see you’ve been crying.”
“They had gone upstairs in a lift though they only ascended one story and Mrs. Rachel told Laurette down a long passage; at the end of it she turned right and opened a door. The room that Laurette was shown into was furnished with chintz curtains and covers..”
“At her new home there is a real white peacock who preens himself on the terrace, as well as everything else, ponies, party frocks, pearl necklaces, that the Count can think of to spoil her with.”
“That’s all right. Come and make the acquaintance of the white peacock.′ ‘I’ve met him before.’ His eyebrows lifted in surprise. ‘Indeed,’ he said, ‘when?’ ‘Yesterday. I got lost there,’ she pointed to the wooded slopes of the hill..
“When Laurette is left an orphan and taken to live with her rich, surly guardian, Count Schillinger, the one really precious possession that she takes with her is a white china peacock that belonged to her scientist father.”
“She shook her head, ‘I can’t go without my parcel,’ she said. ‘Did Clara perhaps put it in the trunk for you?’ ‘No, but I can’t go without it.’ She ran upstairs again and soon came back clasping a wooden box tied up with knotted string like the trunk.”