Gelett Burgess

“ But even if the knowledge that no woman likes to be told that she resembles another had not restrained him from confiding in her, the delicate criticism of her wit that would be involved in the comparison would have prevented him from speaking of the singular rencounter. Myrtle Leicester, however, was nobody's fool, and he was surprised to find that what struck him most at this meeting was, not how much the superior Miss Ringgold was intellectually, but how much the more beautiful was Miss Leicester physically. ”

“ One would help an enemy, but one would never ask a favor of an enemy. But there are few enough that one would feel perfectly free to ask anything of."
"Indeed! then I trust you hold me as a friend," said Fincko.
"I don't quite know," Alden replied. "There is something I don't quite know that I 'd dare ask of you."
"But is n't there a difference between love and friendship?" she said. "One surely expects all that, and a great deal more besides—women do, at least."
"If one could depend on one's emotions, yes," said Alden. "But how can a man do that? ”

“ Perhaps you can judge of a girl's looks better than can her own sex. I don't quite know what 'a pretty woman' means, though I fancy you all prefer a doll; but it takes a woman to judge of men. This man is the only one that ever attracted me physically. There was everything in his face that a woman could desire if she lived five lives. He was absolutely beautiful! Don't think I 'm a fool about it, for such a face most mean something more than beauty; it means everything that I have ever longed for, and that 's what it means to be in love, is n't it, Alden? ”

“ But with the ordinary conditions of life there was only one way for such indecision to end, and though wit may capture a man in the long chase, beauty must win in the dash, or when Fortune arranges the mise en scene. No young man is proof against a pretty girl whose hair curls in a salt breeze, whose color comes and goes rapidly, and who is game for a long walk by the shore. It was a stormy July afternoon when Alden found himself down at the Bay Beach for an over-Sunday outing and a visit with the Leicesters. ”

“ It certainly could n't be as strange as he remembered it. It must be like those times when one fancies that one must have been shouting almost at the top of one's voice, and yet has been guilty of no more than an ordinary tone. ”

“ If you know anything of men, you have seen how diffuse they may be, even a very decent man. I think the best of them have come to rely on instinct rather than emotion. A man may persuade himself many times that he is in love, but there is not likely to be more than one of whom he is perfectly sure he will never tire, who will exactly supplement him and help him to live his life well."
"Oh, Alden, I can't, I won't believe that," said Fincko, with a touch on his arm. "You don't understand women if you dare say that ”

“ Some day, perhaps, I shall tell him, for I have seen the man, the only man that I could ever marry. It was more than a year ago, but I can see his face now as distinctly as I did then. You men are no judge of masculine beauty, you know. ”

“ His farewell look, however, was directed toward the mirror, and was unedged with the sharp criticism of the other. "She is pretty," he admitted, and that seemed to be the only definite thing he could say on the subject.
His reverie had taken so long that he was barely on time at the Underhills', and as soon as he arrived the company was complete. After a few introductions he was taken up to Miss Ringgold, whose partnership he had been promised for dinner. He had heard of Miss Ringgold before, and he had looked forward with some little curiosity to the meeting. ”