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.
