Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

“ Miss Decker sank upon the divan, incredulity, curiosity, expectation, feminine satisfaction marching across her face in rapid procession.
“I have always maintained that a married woman has a perfect right to flirt,” continued Mrs. Pendleton. “The more if she has married an old man and life is somewhat of a bore. ‘Why do you marry an old man?’ snaps the virtuous world. ‘What a contemptible creature you are to marry for anything but love!’ it cries, as it eats the dust at Mammon’s feet. ”

“ I shall see you to-morrow.
“‘S.’”
“Well, that’s what I call a beast of a man,” said Miss Decker.
“I hate him!” said Jessica, between her teeth.
She looked hard at the ocean. Under its grey sky to-day it was the colour of her eyes, as cold and as unfathomable. The glittering Medusa-like ends of her hair seemed to leap upward and writhe at each other.
“I should think you would hate him,” said Miss Decker; “he is the only living man who ever got the best of you. But listen to what your devoted infant has to say. Nice little boy, Teddy:—
“‘Dearest! Sweetest! ”

“ Pendleton,” he continued, taking the ring from the casket and laying the latter on a rock, “a woman of brains and headstrong will—but unegoistic—likes a brutal and masterful man. An egoistical woman, whether she be fool or brilliant, likes a slave. The reason is that egoism, not being a feminine quality primarily, but borrowed from man, places its fair possessor outside of her sex’s limitations and supplies her with the satisfying simulacrum of those stronger characteristics which she would otherwise look for in man. You are not an egoist.” ”

“ In her most notable novel, “The Conqueror,” Gertrude Atherton has chosen in “the true and romantic story of Alexander Hamilton” a subject which would have attracted few woman writers, and has handled those parts of it with which many men have busied their brains in such a way that The New York Times Saturday Review remarked that it
“Holds more romance than nine-tenths of the imaginative fiction of the day and more veracity than ninety-nine hundredths of the history. She is master of her material.” ”

“ I suppose I deserve it. I suppose that the married flirt is just as poor and paltry and contemptible a creature as the moralist and the minister depict her. We measure morals by results. Therefore I hold to-day that it is the business of a lifetime to throw stones at the married flirt.”
“For Heaven’s sake,” cried Miss Decker, in a tone of exasperation, “stop moralising and tell me what has happened!”
“Do you remember Clarence Trent, Edward Dedham, John Severance, Norton Boswell?” ”

“ Loneliness and despair are alike forgotten. I can write no more! To-morrow! To-morrow!
“‘Boswell.’”
“Read Severance’s,” said Jessica, quickly.
“I believe you like that man!” exclaimed Miss Decker. “I think he’s a brute. But you’re in a scrape. This is from the lordly Severance:—
“‘An Englishman once said of you, with a drawl which wound the words about my memory—“Y-a-a-s; she flirts on ice, so to speak.” Coldest and most subtle of women, why did you keep me in suspense for seven long days? Do you think I believe that fiction of the delayed letter? You forget that we have met before. ”

“ Boswell bowed, his face stamped with gloom.
“What have you done with the others?” asked Jessica, as she closed the door.
“Mr. Severance is storming up and down the sea-room. Mr. Trent is like a caged lion in the library; I expect to hear a crash every minute. But both know what lawyers and dressmakers mean. Boswell will learn something of grandmothers. But they are safe for a quarter of an hour longer. Trust all to me.”
SCENE IV Dedham was sitting on the edge of one of the reception-room chairs, locking and unlocking his fingers until his hands were as red as those of a son of toil. ”

“ What sort of a stone would a politician be most likely to choose?”
Mrs. Pendleton laughed. “A good idea. If couleur de rose be synonymous with conceit, then I think the ruby must have come from Mr. Trent.”
“I am sure of it. And as your author is always in the dumps, I am certain he takes naturally to the sapphire.”
“But the emerald—”
“Is emblematic of your deluded Teddy. The solitaire therefore falls naturally to Mr. Severance. Well, now that you have got through the first interviews in safety, what are you going to do next?” ”

“ She paced up and down the room with nervous steps, glancing for inspiration from the delicate etchings on the walls to the divan that was like a moss bank, to the carpet that might have been a patch of forest green, and thence to the sparkling ocean. ”

“ GERTRUDE ATHERTON was born in San Francisco and received her early education in California and Kentucky, but her best training was in her grandfather’s library, a collection, it is said, of English masterpieces only, containing no American fiction whatever. Yet Mrs. Atherton is as thorough an American as a niece, in the third generation, of Benjamin Franklin should be. ”

“ What an outrageous coquette you are! What is the use of keeping a man in misery?”
“Why are men always in such a hurry? If I were a man now—and an author—I should wait for moonlight, waves breaking on rocks, and all the rest of it.” ”

“ Come at once.
“Jessica Pendleton.
“Our engagement must be a profound secret until the year of my mourning is over.”
Trent’s drab and scanty whiskers seemed to curl into hard knots over the nervous facial contortion in which he indulged. Nature being out of material when at work upon him had seemingly constructed his muscles from stout twine. ”

“ I caught him buying an unusually fine sapphire in Tiffany’s yesterday. Said it was for his sister. H’m—h’m.”
“Ah! I wonder who it can be?”
“Don’t know. Hasn’t looked at a woman since you left. But I have a strong suspicion that it is some one here in Newport.”
“Here! I wonder if it can be Edith?”
“Miss Decker? Sure enough. Never seemed to pay her much attention, though. She’s not my style; too much like sixteen dozen other New York girls.”
He buttoned up his coat, braced himself against it, and gave his moustache a frantic twist.
“Mrs.—Jessica!” ”

“ This gives her work both keen, clever strength and brilliancy of colour, developed through years of hard work, many of which were spent abroad, and reaching their best manifestation in her latest fiction, the one quality in “The Conqueror” and the other in “The Splendid Idle Forties.” Both of these books go to prove the foresight of Mr. Harold Frederic, who, shortly before his death, declared her to be “the only woman in contemporary literature who knew how to write a novel,” and that her future work would be her best. ”

“ You have your revenge, Jessica; you have blunted their sense of humour for life. I doubt if they ever even read the funny page of a newspaper again. Here comes the postman. There! the bell has rung. Why doesn’t Hart go? I’ll go myself in a minute.”
Mrs. Pendleton’s nostrils dilated a little, but she did not turn her head even when the manservant entered and held a silver tray before her.
Four letters lay thereon. She placed them on her lap but did not speak until the man had left the room. Then she looked at Miss Decker and gave the letters a little sweep with the tips of her fingers. ”

“ It will be amusing—to be engaged to four men at once. You will command the forces and see that they do not meet. Of course, it cannot be kept up very long, and when all resources are failing I will let them meet and make them madly jealous. ”

“ A tall broad-shouldered young man, with much repose of face and manner, entered the office from the avenue, glanced at the pigeon-holes above the clerk’s desk, then sauntered deliberately into the morning-room and looked out of the window. A slight rigidity of the nostrils alone betokened the impatience within, and his uneasy thoughts ran somewhat as follows:—
“What a fool I have been! After all my experience with women to make such an ass of myself over the veriest coquette that ever breathed ”

“ Trent,” interrupted Miss Decker. “I hear you made a stirring speech the other night.”
“I did. It was on the question of Radicalism in the Press versus Civil Service Reform. Something must be done to revolutionise this hotbed of iniquity, American politics. Such principles need courage, but when the hour comes the man must not be wanting—”
“That was all in the paper next morning,” drawled Boswell. “Mrs. Pendleton, did you receive the copy of my new book I sent a fortnight ago? ”

“ Severance and has but a minute. You had better go at once, for you know her temper is not sweet.”
“Provoking thing!” said Jessica, with a pout. It was the fourth mood to which she treated Severance in this short interview, and he looked at her with delight. “But I will get rid of her as soon as possible. Will you excuse me for a few moments? I will be back in ten.”
“A dressmaker is the only tyrant to whom I bow, the only foe before whom I lay down my arms. Go; but come back soon.”
“In ten minutes.”
“Which is it, and where is he?” she whispered eagerly as they crossed the hall.
“Mr. Trent. ”

“ It will do one of them good, at least.”
“Well, you have courage,” ejaculated Miss Decker. “You can’t do it. But yes, you can. If the woman lives who can play jackstraws with firebrands, that woman is you. And what fun! We are so dull here—both in mourning. I’ll help you. I’ll carry out your instructions like a major.”
Mrs. Pendleton rose and walked up and down the room once or twice. “There is only one thing,” she said, drawing her brows together: “if I am engaged to them they will want to—h’m—kiss me, you know. It will be rather awkward. I never was engaged to any one but Mr. ”

“ Boswell,” interrupted Trent, “that it is rude to whisper in company. Therefore, to save your manners in Mrs. Pendleton’s eyes, I will do you the kindness to prevent further lapse.” And he seated himself on the other side of Jessica and glared defiantly at Boswell.
“Mr. Severance and Mr. Dedham!”
Severance entered hurriedly. “I am so glad to hear—ah, Boswell! Trent!”
“How odd that you should all find your way here the very first evening of your arrival!” And Jessica held out her hand with a placid smile. Miss Decker was more nervous, but five seasons were behind her. “Ah!” continued Mrs. ”