Philip Curtiss

“ The attitude of the Country Club had made osculation rather nauseous. It would seem better breeding not to notice it; and yet, and yet, it was rather funny that it should have been Helen. It was the first personal illustration which Furniss had ever had of the dramatic, and he began to ponder. If you ever wish to reclaim a devil, just try him on the dramatic. It is the only uplifting influence which sleeps in the souls of most of them.
The emotions of Butley Smith were less happily chosen. ”

“ With the usual inconsistency of a man who can lose large sums with apparent indifference, he raved and fumed at the loss of a penny. He raved and fumed all the afternoon at his office, and it was not until well after five that he made an unaccustomed appearance at the Quoits Club, still raging and fuming, with the only horror that a man of his type can ever know—the horror of losing money. ”

“ The society of Fitchly shook its head occasionally, but on the whole kept him along. It would be extremely difficult to drop a man who had nowhere to drop to; and as he asked nothing of Fitchly, there was nothing to refuse. This occasion at the Country Club, then, was the first real instance in which the elements had come in conflict.
Of the many mixed emotions which accompanied the premature withdrawal from the Country Club that night, only two will suffice for illustration, as they marked the extremes—those of Furniss himself and of Butley Smith, the Menelaus of the ravished Helen. ”

“ It was a glowing idea, but it was n't practical, as associates of Butley brutally pointed out when they drew attention to the fact that the face of the ex-half-back, and the present associate of half the prize-fighters in the East, would be an extremely hard one to pummel, and their logic suggests an admirable course of action for one who would play a dramatic part in such histories. If you must be an outraged husband, be one in a novel or a play, where you will always he able to thrash or horse-whip or shoot the villain within an inch of his life. ”

“ Furniss himself drove the best-looking motor-car in Fitchly, and his effect was esthetically better than his father's, for, owing to the rigidity of the thing, it is much easier to have a good taste in motor-cars than in horses. His mother was a blonde, expensively-dressed woman of the type which goes through life in the hideous belief that tight-lacing will make feminine obesity anything but revolting.
Yet at twenty-five Furniss had had his chances. He went to college and played foot-ball. He played it well. It is frequently the noblest thing that men of his stamp ever do, except one. ”

“ The sudden hush which fell on the group when the lights were restored at once displayed the awfulness of Furniss's depravity, as viewed by the Fitchly Country Club, in riot assembled. Had any other man been caught in the same act, with any other woman, there would have been merely a triumphant outcry of self-acknowledged devilishness. The man would have bought at the bar below, and the women would have screamed themselves to their motors ”

“ They sometimes get into the army, and into the cavalry; less frequently into the infantry, but never, absolutely never, into the engineers. It was, moreover, the heyday of the college athlete, those golden years of the nineties when men wore huge white Y's and H's on high-necked sweaters at mountain resorts all summer, and when reputations lasted more than a year. ”

“ The physical incapacity of villains in these circles is admirable. In real life, unfortunately, they are quite apt to be fully the equals of the outraged husband, or otherwise the husbands would be less frequently outraged.
The probabilities of this situation were easily comprehended by a legal mind which spurned a criminal practice, and Butley Smith had to take his satisfaction in biding his time, reserving, however, the privilege of biting his lip, to which extent he lived up to the unities. Meantime the situation in Fitchly did not improve. ”

“ It would be nice to think that something in the sweet, old-fashioned manner of this dainty, refined girl, whose ancestors had been immigrants two hundred years before Furniss's, appealed to the brute and barbaric in the foot-ball hero, and perhaps it did, but a more plausible reason for his falling in love with her was that every one else was doing it. ”

“ By the same perfect precision of instinct not a single iota of blame was attached to the lady in question, for the accurate conception of Furniss on the part of the Country Club demonstrated also that she was only an instrument in a tragedy of the elements. One does not accuse a person of being an accessory to a cyclone. ”

“ The real devils, moreover, regard the devilish purely with a mild amusement, if they regard them at all. Their only vexation is that of professional craftsmen at the "pin-money" workers, whose spasmodic efforts cut into legitimate trade. ”

“ His achievements rather pointed to the fact that he had, and his tastes to the fact that he had not; but, in any case, he made money, and whatever might be his misdeeds, he never bothered any one by telling about them. He manufactured in quantity the best off-set drill in America, and furthermore, as he held the patents, the wholesale jobbers who bought the drill troubled not one whit with his morals. ”