Temple Bailey

“ Cartwright went and stood beside her, towering far above her. For the first time in his life there came to him the feeling of the remoteness of the good woman. There had been girls who had smiled, girls who had blushed, girls who had protested, but no girl like this one with the dreamy, rapt face, that inspired in him a feeling of reverence.
He knew it was time to stop, but the passion of conquest was upon him. He bent his head down, close to hers. "Do you love me?" he breathed, and knew that, if he had been a true man, he would have stated his own feeling first. ”

“ CARTWRIGHT had always believed in the blindness of love—that is, of woman's love. "If she loves you, she won't see your faults," he had said, complacently.
He held this opinion until he met Edith Martine. Miss Martine was really very nice. Cartwright had decided that when he saw her on his first night at the Mountain House. She was small and fair and sympathetic, and she was a gentlewoman. Cartwright was discriminating. He often associated with girls who were not gentlewomen—sometimes he liked that kind best, but he knew the difference. ”

“ In the reaction, swift anger surged through him. On his lips were the words that would tell her that he had offered to her not the devotion of a lifetime, but the admiration of seven, or fourteen, or twenty-one days, as his vacation might extend. ”