Ernest William Hornung

“ Men may not think so. Intensely particular ladies, in the pride of their complete respectability, tried to impress upon very young men in whom they were interested that Miss Anstruther was not at all a nice girl. But this had a disappointing effect upon the boys. And Miss Anstruther by no means confined herself to rejecting mere boys.
The moths that singed themselves at this flame were of every variety. They would have made a rare collection under glass, with pins through them; Miss Anstruther herself would have inspected them thus with the liveliest interest. ”

“ There was a great deal of assorted merit scattered among those moths. Looks, intellect, a nice voice, an operatic moustache, or an aptitude for the informal recitation of engaging verses, werea purely random selection from their several strong points; but even these, picked out and fitted together, would have made a dazzling being: whom Miss Anstruther would have rejected as firmly and as finally as she had rejected his integral parts.
For there was no pleasing the girl. ”

“ Perhaps she was not the right girl for the right man—perhaps he refused to be attracted by her. That would be odd, but not impossible; and a girl who had refused to fall in love with every man who had ever fallen in love with her, was the likeliest girl in the world to care for some man who cared nothing for her—primarily to make him care. That is a woman, through and through, reflected Lord Nunthorp, out of the recesses of a recherché experience. But Midge would most certainly make him care: she was fascinating enough to capture any man (except himself) if she seriously tried ”

“ If you are to blame anybody, I'm afraid it must be yourself. You must give them some encouragement, Midge, or I don't think they'd all come to the point as they do. I never saw such sportsmen as they are! They walk in and walk out again one after the other, and they seem to like it——'
'I wish they did!' said Miss Anstruther, devoutly. ”

“ I crop up in some magazine or other every month!'
'"Into work the poet kneads them,"' murmured Nunthorp, who was not a professional cricketer. 'Well, you needn't bother yourself about him. You've made the fellow. He now draws a heroine better than most men. It's a pity you don't take to writing, Midge, you'd draw your heroes better than women do as a rule; for don't you see that you must know more about us than we know about ourselves?'
'They wouldn't be much of heroes!' laughed the girl. ”

“ And because these letters had been just what they were, Ted Miller himself had been to a frivolous girl, through frivolous years, what no one else had ever been—not even himself as she had known him face to face. Their friendship had been pure and strong and strengthening; their love idealised by improbability, and further by not being discussed, and yet further by being written 'friendship.' His tone to her had been: 'Enjoy yourself. I want to hear you're having a good time. I am—there's nothing like work.' She had answered, very truthfully, that she was doing so ”

“ Now the girl who gets herself proposed to regularly once a week in the season is far less contemptible; she is not contemptible at all, for how could she know that you meant so much more than she did. ”

“ Her detractors also could have enjoyed themselves at such an exhibition. But the more generous spirits among them—those who had been young and attractive too long ago to pretend to be either still—might have found there some slight excuse for Miss Anstruther. ”

“ A sweetly pretty and highly accomplished young girl, little Miss Anstruther, came to know too much to dream of taking any man's word on this point, She was reputed to have refused more offers than a good girl ought to get ”

“ Either they write and call me everything—rudely, politely, sarcastically, all ways—or they say their hearts are broken, and they haven't the faintest intention of getting over it—in fact, they wouldn't get over it if they could. That's enough to make any person feel low, even if you know from experience what to expect. At one time I daren't look in the paper for fear of seeing their suicides ”

“ They all seem to get over it pretty easily; and that doesn't make you think much better of yourself, you know. Of course I'm inconsistent!'
'Of course you are,' said Nunthorp, cordially. 'I approve of you for it. I'd rather see you an old maid, Midge, than going through life in a groove. Consistency's a narrow groove for narrow minds! I can do better than this about consistency, Midge; I'm hot and strong on the subject. But you're not listening.'
'Ah!' cried Miss Anstruther, who had not listened to a word, 'they're driving me crazy, between them! There's Mr. ”