Contents

I.WITH A DÉBUTANTEPage[1]
II.WITH A LEFT-OVER GIRL[21]
III.WITH A GYM GIRL[43]
IV.WITH A HEROINE[65]
V.WITH A CLUBWOMAN[89]
VI.WITH A CYNIC[113]
VII.WITH A CHAPERON[135]
VIII.WITH A NICE MAN[157]
IX.WITH AN ENGAGED GIRL[177]
X.WITH A BRIDE[195]

I
WITH A DÉBUTANTE

“And so,” I said, “you are to come out.”

She was not the girl I took in to dinner, a circumstance which invested her with a perverted interest. It often is so. The fact might remind us of the wider paradox—the fascination of the people in whom we shouldn’t be interested. I have noticed the same thing in the matter of duties, even of agreeable duties. When I have a book to write, I always can think of the most beautiful things for the book that I am to write next after that.

I tried to express something of this idea to her while the man who brought her in was talking to a charming lady on his left.