Anna Alice Chapin

“ Carpenter, I'll challenge that statement!” said Curtis suddenly. “Look at the table near the window—over there, just beside that big palm. There's a girl in blue with her back to us, and, opposite, a man——”
Pippa looked—and then looked more attentively.
“Yes,” she said, after a minute. “He does look interesting—and odd. Who is he?”
“Larry Monahan, the cleverest Irish lad in America,” rejoined the newspaper man; “a lovable, scatter-brained imp, who can tell a yarn or write a column that'll win the heart out of your breast—if he likes, which he usually doesn't!” ”

“ Carpenter, with the imperious simplicity of a beautiful and charming woman who has only to pick and choose, among the men she meets, which one she will honor by a word or a look.
The boy was as strange and as fascinating to watch as a young faun. Even his eyebrows slanted slightly, carrying out the suggested likeness to some sprite of the pagan woods. He was darker than most Irishmen—his hair was black, and, even seen from a distance, it was obvious that his eyes were dark, too. ”

“ Is she a provincial or a Western product, proving—what old New Yorkers know full well—that Manhattan is the queen of summer resorts? Is she of an obscure working stratum, one that can afford to show herself and dress smartly only during those months in which pretty clothes are cheap and festivities informal? ”

“ Pippa was still regarding the little table by the palm.
“He is rather a boy, both in nature and in years, as a matter of fact, but he's a first-class reporter for all that, when he happens to feel like working! I don't know whether he has a job now or not. He gets them and loses them with about equal speed.”
“He must have money to be as independent as that.”
“Larry?” Curtis laughed. “Not a red cent! But it's little that troubles him—as he'd put it himself. He lives like the birds of the air, I think. Sometimes when I run across him he's as thin as a rail and as shabby as a tramp ”

“ Carpenter in his uncommunicative way, and she knew it.
“Your Irishman is attractive, Max,” said one of the other women. “Don't you think so, Mabel?”
Mabel, who was little, and nervous, and temperamental, shrugged her shoulders.
“He will be,” she returned, “when he gets a soul!”
Pippa started.
“That's it!” she said slowly. “I was wondering what it was that he ought to have and hasn't. Mabel is right. He hasn't any soul—yet. Children, I am tired, and I want to go home.”
They began to collect gloves and vanity boxes.
“And who is 'Molly'?” asked the woman who thought Larry attractive. ”

“ Pippa drew a long breath.
“Very well,” she said. “Let us talk frankly. I suppose Larry is, as you say, falling in love with me. He—he is very dear to me. I don't feel that a childish understanding with you should stand in his way now that he is a man.”
“But he isn't a man,” said Molly Reilly. “He's a child, just the same as he was then.”
Pippa felt a distinct sense of shock. So Molly, too, had felt it—the will-o'-the-wisp quality? In some subtle way the girl had risen to a different footing; they were two women talking face to face.
Molly proceeded:
“Larry hasn't grown up. ”