T. S. Stribling

“ The smile somehow vexed the dignified Stendill agent.
“Tilita,” he suggested, “it seems to me after what has occurred——”
She became serious again—almost serious.
The girl had a fruity look. Her skin absorbed sunlight like a ripe pear and then glowed gently at the New Yorker. She looked as if she had soaked from the jungle its fulgor, its intensity of color, its pressure of vitality. Undoubtedly man is the modest sex. Men spend much cleverness in trying to veil their women, and women spend much more cleverness in getting unveiled.
Lassiter fumbled through his clothing and found a pin ”

“ It embarrassed the promoter.
“Why did you let him say such things of me?” she pressed.
“Really, Tilita, you—you can't very well tell what a man's going to say till he says it——”
“You let him talk on.”
“I couldn't stop him.”
“Why?”
“He's a sort of preacher.”
“A preacher——”
“Yes, a—a preacher is a man you pay to say disagreeable things; you can't take offense at a fellow, you know, when he's on his job.”
Lassiter hoped this little skit would make her smile. Instead she grew angrier, opened her eyes wider and seemed taller. ”

“ A sun-worshiper in the remote conservatism of Charleston's Battery!
The incongruity of such an idea set the promoter laughing. The girl was surprized and wanted to know the reason. The promoter could not hope to explain his mental meanderings to the girl, so he asked—
“How came you to be so angry at Birdsong, Tilita?”
THE smile on the girl's face vanished abruptly, and Lassiter discovered that her countenance had that extraordinary quality of seeming to look its best in whatever mood it wore. About one woman out of three or four million possesses this charm. ”

“ Once a man came out with his head all bloody, but he felt nothing at all—absolutely nothing. He-said he felt nothing at all—and you are so tall and strong——”
Tilita evidently anticipated a great social triumph. ”