Guy Wetmore Carryl

“ Carnby was not able to monopolize Andrew. Mrs. Ratchett took him into her good graces, and, as was usual with her where men were concerned, contrived to make him think of her between his calls. And there were many others — women characteristic of the American Colony, whose husbands were never served up except with dinner. It was as Mrs. Carnby told him:
“If a bachelor has manners, discretion, and presentable evening dress, he need never pay for a dinner in Paris, so long as the Colony knows of his existence. And remember this. Nothing is dearer to a woman’s heart than a man at five o’clock. ”

“ So they went about Andrew’s sight-seeing in a leisurely manner, taking the Louvre and the Luxembourg by half-hours, and sandwiching in a church, a monument, or a celebrated street, on the way; for it was another theory of Radwalader’s that a franc found on the pavement, or in the pocket of a discarded waistcoat, is more gratifying than fifty deliberately earned.
“It’s the things you happen on which you will enjoy,” he said, “not those you go to work to find, by taking a tram or walking a mile. Unpremeditated discoveries, like unpremeditated dissipations, are always the most successful. ”

“ Your ostrich, with his silly head buried in the sand, is not the only creature that fatuously underestimates both its own desirability and the perspicacity of those interested in its movements. Twice, in the afternoon, Andrew had driven with Mirabelle in the Allée des Acacias. ”

“ She cultivated Andrew assiduously, though it was not for this reason that he dropped in so frequently at tea-time. Margery, with her clean-cut beauty, appealed to him in a very special sense. They had in common many memories of the free, open-air, sane, and wind-blown life of the North Shore ”

“ Madame Palffy, too, seeking whom she might entertain (which, in her case, was equivalent to devouring) , collected young men as geologists collect specimens of minerals. The analogy was strengthened by her predilection for chipping off portions — the darker portions — of their characters, and handing these around for the edification of her friends. ”