Alice Duer Miller

“ And for Bill, six weeks waiting for the bolt to fall; six weeks of the ridiculous position in which his brilliant little struggle had left him.
At length he held out his hand. "Good-by," he said.
Miss Gerard was clearly nervous. "I'll see you as soon as we come back," she said, combating not very happily the finality of his manner.
"You'll never see me; not this way, at least. Why should I come? It is not worth while to go on being tortured for nothing. What do I mean by being tortured? Seeing you go off for six weeks on a party in which Dale Fenton is the only man you will speak to. ”

“ The ladies contested the point prettily, and Bill noticed that Dale looked as little like a fool as a man under the circumstances could. When Miss Gerard had established her claim she turned to Bill:
"You will come, too, won't you, Mr. Emmons?" she said. "I shall like to hear you two clever men talk together about the things that are worth while."
Bill was annoyed to find himself elated, and accepted so coolly that Fenton said, pleasantly:
"Don't mind his manner, Miss Gerard. It is the greatest compliment possible that he accepts at all. ”

“ Dale Fenton belonged to about the same organizations that Bill did, only his membership was more of a matter of course and less of a triumph for pure democracy. This was precisely the fact that sometimes annoyed and sometimes flattered Bill. Fenton had no other spheres of activity at college. He did not feel the obligations of putting the millionaires in their proper place; of being a true ideal. ”

“ For about this time a number of things, he would have said, combined to throw him with Miss Gerard. In the first place, she was, for a little while, the only girl he knew, so that he naturally looked for her when he entered a ballroom, and nowadays he entered a good many. Then, too, it was both easy and sometimes pleasant to talk to her, and he was not averse, as he himself would have put it, to giving Dale a run for his money. ”

“ Fenton, who was extremely technical."
"Trust him to be that," said Bill, and then added, as if a little ashamed of himself: "I had really no idea Dale went in for that sort of thing."
Mrs. Emmons had a delightful little air of being about to bestow a confidence. "Do you know," she said, "I believe it is one of the few instances of the things going in for him. You have no notion how foolish the girls are about him, and older women, too, who ought to know better. He is, of course, an intelligent, well-looking young man, but after all, we know of others." She smiled at Bill across the table. ”

“ It does not require much imagination to follow. He was a young man, not without his ideals, and of great capacity for happiness. Marriage was a step on which he had always looked with theoretical dread. ”

“ Soon, even the scientists will find in us their only readers. You men wall be too deeply engaged in the struggle for the World's Common Necessities." She was quoting his article, and Bill writhed between pain and pleasure. ”