Alice Duer Miller

“ It was, perhaps, this obvious quality of a sort of inevitable, basic intimacy that led Miss Littel to say to herself that she must have met the man somewhere before. In her arrogant judgment it was impossible that any man should look at her with so frank and friendly a glance unless he had been properly introduced. ”

“ All this time they had been walking north, and were now crossing Forty-second Street. Their progress was held up by a south-bound Madison Avenue car, and as they passed, Miss Littel had an inspiration. The conductor had already rung the bells and the car had started, when she stepped, without warning, aboard it, and the motorman suddenly putting on full speed, she was out of her pursuer's grasp before he had time to realize it. For the second time their eyes met squarely, and this time she allowed herself to smile. ”

“ It was a showery April afternoon, and both of them suddenly moving their umbrellas, they found themselves gazing into each other's eyes. They were total strangers—that is, they had been an instant before, but sometimes a glance is really a meeting, and in that rather prolonged instant their eyes had been avenues to their spirits. ”

“ For I need not point out to you, Mrs. Austin, that for the average American the beast-of-prey theory is entirely exploded. Most of us ask merely a little companionship from women, and not very much of that. ”

“ Miss Littel had not been prepared for this, and the best reply she could think of was: "I should not do that if I were you. The house is full of men-servants."
"No house can be well run without," he replied.
Miss Littel rang the bell and asked if Mrs. Austin was at home. She was expected in at any moment, the butler said; and so Miss Littel, who had made up her mind to wait, entered the drawing-room, followed by the young man. ”

“ You know, one can't run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. As it is, my dear, you have deprived us both of a pleasant acquaintance."
These words sank into Miss Littel's consciousness. "If I had to do it again—" she began.
"But you haven't," said her friend. "Unhappily such incidents happen but once in a lifetime."
Miss Littel moved again to the window, and after looking carefully up and down the empty street, she observed, "Of course, if he had seriously meant what he said, he would have been willing to tell us his name."
Mrs. Austin smiled. ”

“ Undoubtedly you ought to have taken your omnibus—any well-brought-up young woman would have done so; but having failed in this, you should then have had the insight to treat that young man as a human being—to have taken him home and introduced him to your parents, perhaps. ”