H. De Vere Stacpoole

“ And the way the old butler said, "Miss Geraldine" quite calmly, though he knows Miss Geraldine is a boy; and she is a boy, and she ought to be smacked for being such a prig. But why smack her when it's not her fault? No, it's James Wilder and the old butler that require smacking, and still—and still, these two old fools between them have produced, or helped to produce, this weird child, just as she is; and in all God's earth she is the most beautiful thing, and the most strange. She is like a thing made of mist, yet she is real; she is a ghost, yet one can touch her. ”

“ The Geraldine who came up to me last night to be kissed, just as a tame fawn might have done, was not exactly the Geraldine of this morning. And yet I liked this something that had come between us. Kisses are just like apples; if you can get as many as you want they grow tasteless, and the more you pay for them the sweeter they seem, and they are never so sweet as when you steal them. I never heard of a farmer robbing his own orchard, have you? ”

“ I felt perverse, just as I always feel, and would have liked to tease—only I wouldn't have dared—this half-absurd, wholly delightful production of old James Wilder. But when I thought of her as a girl I felt—I felt the dim remembrance of a past life, and an infinite sadness. ”