Flirting for Revenue Only
I am a Private Corporation.
My capital stock is a pretty face, a clear head, and pleasant manners.
I was incorporated by the "social legislature" four winters ago. Mamma was the active, successful lobbyist. My father was the silent, financial lever absolutely necessary for the passage of the bill—opposition small.
The social Banking-House (our residence), on a fashionable avenue, had been erected years before. A great mass of brick and mortar—stone-front of course—not beautiful, but imposing. It was left unfurnished—a portion of it—until I was ready to start in upon my social career. That is quite a usual plan with people who are prospectively fashionable. They do nothing with the drawing-room, library, and reception-room until the daughter of the house is pronounced ready. The plastering, after a dry of eighteen years, has had plenty of time to settle, and is not apt to crack the costly papers or ruin the elaborate frescoes; and the wood-work no longer in danger of warping or opening too much.
My incorporation was an event. Business at once set in, and, with slight fluctuations, has continued ever since brisk and healthful. The venture has been a decided success. The constant, untiring skill of mamma, and the valuable experience of each gay season has enabled me to frequently increase the capital stock. For my face is more pretty than it was four years ago, and my manners are more easy and pleasing. Mamma says manners are every thing—and they are a great deal. I have grown to be somewhat of a woman of the world. I have met so many new people—strangers from all parts of the earth! I have been every where, and done so much. There is nothing local about me! Some people say that I am all things to all men; perhaps I am, for if I am not broad I am not any thing. I abhor narrow-mindedness! I am a trifle fraudulent in a harmless way, which I am free to confess is more than a trifle fascinating to most of the men I know. I smile, make eyes, sometimes sigh, and with many devices coax the masculine fancy into life, and for my sake. Yet, withal, I am said to be conscientious—very, in fact, and never intentionally deceive. My reputation is better, alas! than I deserve. My network is invisible but effectual; my weaving-power artless, but it is the art concealing the artful.
I am a Private Corporation! Therefore, I own all the stock. I constantly make loans, but I never sell. The collateral—either the many shades of love or the subtle changes of friendship—must be A No. 1 in every respect. It is collateral, not indorsements which I require. Paper not able to sustain itself is not considered worth much in my Banking-House (social).
It is my sweet expectation to retire from business whenever I chance to find—or rather when I am found—by the right purchaser. I often long for that time; I often picture to myself the undoubted delights of a domestic life, and—but in the meantime I carry on a carefully perfected system of
Flirting for Revenue Only.
That is my long-chosen motto, from which I do not depart. A Private Corporation must have protection! Self-preservation is the first consideration, the first law. I am full of little formulas of both manner and speech—they afford me ample protection. Make-talk is the complete salvation of the female Banker (social). I never disdain the use of a promoter, no matter how trivial it may be. Promoters help you to float heavy, stupid men, and save you from a complete wreck on the shores of stupidity; and they act as most excellent elicitors when applied to clever men—draw out the very best in them. I have promoters and promoters. I was asked not long since to give my definition or receipt of this valuable article. This was the one which I gave: Take some tangible object visible to the eye; for instance, a banjo. Attract attention to it in some successful way. Talk first about the banjo itself (the promoter), then if the man is clever he will, unconsciously, be led up from a discussion of that or other musical instruments to a chat on music, ballads, operas, in fact the very best he has to tell, the best he happens to know on that subject. In this way we are able to rise above the trivial, worn topics of the day—the usual make-talk of the multitude. I am always very happy in the selection of my promoters. I may not be very original, but I am quick to appropriate new ideas. I rapidly get them into the line of march, ready for immediate use.
To be a "social success" one must be something of an actress. Men usually expect a vast amount of acting from young women, who will, if they are discreet, certainly live up to that expectation. Men are willing to be deceived, but it must not be a labeled deceit. I go down the street and meet Mr. Seyhmoor; although I see him a block off, and before he sees me, yet I affect great surprise when he greets me—a little start is quite effective. The trifling little deception floods my face with color, which comes almost at my command. It easily flashes upon him that I am indeed surprised, and betrayed into an expression of my delight. He is flattered. He joins me. A batch of envious women watch my little triumph. That is
Flirting for Revenue Only.
Then a walk down the street, a talk of mere wordy nothings, but of deep and tender looks. In point of words, a make-talk affair; in point of feeling, a vague shadowy suggestion of twenty delicious possibilities; in point of fact a walk without any serious results. Calburt Young, a fascinating man-about-town, a semi-Bohemian, joins me at a fashionable ball. He takes me away from the dancing-room (and the other men), for Bohemians never dance. He finds, as only he can, some quiet unoccupied nook, a little out of the way, and yet a very proper place. An effective spot environed by flowers, and palms broad and graceful, hung with dimly-lighted, richly-colored lanterns—where you may see but not be seen, where you may hear the gayety and yet by it not be disturbed. Music from the ball-room reaches me, and a delicate oriental perfume fills the air. Calburt Young, handsome, silent, with a look of earnest appeal on his face, looks down into mine. Not the man, but his manner, the situation, the music, the stealthy, intoxicating odor of perfume and flowers, the sway of each tropical leaf, the distant gayety, all surcharge my soul; gratify to the fullest extent my sensuous nature—my love of the picturesque and the luxurious. The temptation is strong to depart from my fixed principle. But I do not yield. I half extend my ungloved hand, white and ringless, murmur in a low voice suggestive of suppressed emotion, "You are very good to me! I was tired; I am glad to have this rest—and with you, Mr. Young!"
I am permeated with the deliciousness of the situation! I am conscious of the magnetic something about me, drawing him near to me! I can almost feel his hot, quick breath on my cheek where the color comes and goes. He is within my power! But I do not love him. With an effort I banish the tender manner. My voice, now a trifle cold, asserts itself in clear, even tones: "Let us return; I am rested now. Mr. Seyhmoor claims me for the next dance!"
The spell is broken! Calburt Young does not understand! He is wise, but I—I am a woman, and a woman of the world. But he does not reproach me. How can he? I have not allowed him to say a word of love to me. I have been environed not only with flowers, colored lights, and sweet music, but also with the harmless platitudes of speech. I whirl away into the dance with Henry Seyhmoor! I have been boldly flirting,
Flirting for Revenue Only.
Sometimes I am not so successful in this avoidance of exactly what I have skillfully brought out. Sometimes this policy leads to a proposal. The tide grows too strong. The man breaks down the barrier, but what good does it do? I have maintained a high protective tariff; there is nothing tangible which he can produce against me; there is never any thing which he can say against me; and if I have been ordinarily skillful and cautious there is absolutely nothing for him to think, but "How good she has been to me; how delicately, tenderly, she has tried to avoid giving me pain!"
At the start, my first season out, it was a hard policy to follow, and I would often spend a sleepless hour, after the man had said "good-night!" But those foolish old days have gone, and with them the early freshness of my youth, although the appearance remains. I have seen so many men promptly revive beneath the showers of another woman's glance and of another woman's tender—perhaps like mine—unmeant words, mere platitudes, platitudes effectual, intangible. They are not sufficient proof in any court of conscience, law, or public opinion. They are the glorious privileges of a woman who is a Private Corporation,
Flirting for Revenue Only.
Robert Fairfield! There is a magic something in the very name itself. And the man! ah, after all, old things are best. My heart never knew a sensation—the quick, throbbing something which we call love—until I met him, when hardly more than a school-girl. It was my first winter! He was young, attractive, somewhat wild, and quite the fashion that year, and in fact ever since. He is a dainty love-maker. He is ready with a hundred delicate little attentions unknown to most men, and highly gratifying to most women. But after all their influence is limited—at least with me. His actual presence is necessary. Mamma opposed the match—for we were engaged (never announced) at one time. She always disliked him, and on that one subject has always been unreasonable. But she has more influence over me than he has, or ever could have. She can generally eradicate the dangerous effects of his presence. This he resented—and rightly. I must renounce mother, home, every thing, and come to him, or—I must cling to him and let all other things go. He recognized no middle course; I constantly sought one. I put him off; I made him many promised, and meant them all—when with him. Finally he was forbidden the house, and now we barely more than speak. He is somewhat devoted to a half dozen or more of our best young women, and they are all more or less devoted to him. The world—-our little world—once said we would marry; but the world has decided that it was, mistaken, and that we did not even love one another. And did we, or not? In short, do we?
There are times, moments of despondency, more frequent here of late, when something within whispers, "You are waiting too long! You are, indeed, far above par, but will it last?"
The credit of my Banking-House (social) is apparently without limit. My pretty face stands well the wear and tear of hard social work. My worst female enemy dares not call me passe in the slightest degree, although I am a shade beyond the uncertain age of twenty-five. But surely these strange premonitions must come as a warning. They surely mean something. My womanly intuition—and it can be trusted—plainly prompts me to give up this dangerous, ruinous policy of
Flirting for Revenue Only.
I must abandon my little formulas of speech and manners. I must quit making eyes. I must grant myself a pause in this social farce. I must try to let myself love the man whom my real honest self hath chosen years ago. The man I drove from my door for the sake of general revenue. The man against whom I closed my heart! But will he come back again? Will his proud spirit brook an uncertainty? But, after all, is it well worth, the while? Those are uncertain questions—I dismiss them. There is no immediate danger. My humor changes; I am no longer despondent. Away with Doubtful Uncertainty and all of his stale retinue, tricked out in danger-signals—each a false one. Sleep on, sweet Conscience, sleep on! To-night the wedding-reception—given to a woman married for her money! Another glorious opportunity for me!
A.B. I may be found any time between the hours of nine and one, on the crowded stair, in a nook beneath, in the dancing-room, or—somewhere about the flower-decked house in my accustomed capacity of Private Corporation, skillfully, successfully
Flirting for Revenue Only.
