Henry C. Rowland

“ Then I read memoirs a good deal and a certain amount of philosophic essay stuff. But I like fiction best. Good fiction is life, and my own way of living is so routine that I have to get my thrills vicariously. ”

“ The following day, Claudius, elated with the pride and pleasure it gave him to act as host, invited them to remain his guests “for the rest of the season,” as he put it, with the vagueness characteristic of his social sense. He balked a little at Suzanne's telling him how delighted she and Sydney would be to do so, but only on condition that he permit them to defray their share of the actual provisions and laundry bills. In the end, Claudius agreed to this, to the infinite disgust of Cocky, Pussy, Polly, Cholly, and myself. ”

“ And then one day—a hot Sunday in August, when the three were having supper on the terrace of the Casa Pompeiana, and Suzanne was sighing for a thunderstorm to cool her stifling room under the roof of the Fairview Hotel—Claudius came to the Pass of the False Step and put his foot through it.
“T should be very glad if you and Sydney”—it had become “Sydney” and “Claudius” soon after Suzanne's advent—“would stop the night here,” said he. “If this thunderstorm materializes, you'll get wet on your way back, and if it doesn't, you're apt to cook in the night. It's always cool here.” ”

“ Better to wait until a certain party is dead. I'll tell you one thing, though—never you count on a girl to see you through any such business.
And thence a debate on the relative trustworthiness of the two sexes, Claudius chivalrous and championing the fair, of course, and Arthur belittling girls as a class, but grudgingly admitting certain desirable qualities to the prime of womanhood. He not infrequently directed the conversation into this channel, I fancy. Arthur had a sister two years Claudius' senior—a widow, beautiful in a dark, Levantine way, penniless and ambitious. ”

“ It is probable that a good twenty-five per cent of the young men darting martinlike in and out of their holes in the skyscrapers of the Wall Street district would have borne an equal resemblance. But one martin perched on the rim of one's boat may arouse an attention not bestowed on many buzzing about. ”

“ She was always ladylike. Ladies, unfortunately, are not always ladylike. There are many cats which at times have better manners.
Claudius kept on giving Suzanne things until Arthur began to get worried. There was too much of the small boy and not enough of the dominant male about Claudius for Arthur's taste. He and Suzanne must have had puzzled and anxious debates over what could possibly be wrong with Claudius' sex—how I hate that word!—centers. ”