Anne O'Hagan

“ There was a low stone wall about one of the great Hollywood estates on which, during the ten months of the year when the owners were testing the merits of their other residences, much of the humbler courtship of the town proceeded. Often on her late afternoon walks Miss Torrington had smiled with amused tolerance upon the couples perched along it, like birds upon a telegraph wire. Now she paused in her breathless flight at a spot where the darkness seemed densest and the equidistant arc lights only intensified the circle of blackness. ”

“ The secret panel that some old artificer in woods had pleased himself to make two centuries before slid back, and the past that Miss Torrington had arranged her whole life to ignore fell forward in a packet of letters and papers.
Her own picture was there, showing a face as proud as the one Hollywood knew, but brilliant with an ardor and a sweetness that the college had never seen. The man's face that had lain against it in the recess was eager, winning; the young head was poised debonairly as if its owner had set forth to conquer the world with a laugh and a lute and a rose ”

“ And for an idle, silly flirtation, masquerade of hearts, a flower or two, a hand pressure, a conservatory-set scene to flatter a woman's vanity—oh, have the worst! a kiss to flutter a man's pulse—for that you threw me over, let me go through that damnation without one sign? ”