“Fascinating is not the word I like to use of her. It implies conscious effort.”
Vane was evidently off on a thesis, and Haviland settled himself on the sofa with a pipe. “I have seen many women whom the world calls fascinating, and they never attracted me at all. We look, admire and pass on. Now, Miss Thomas has all the brightness of a woman of the world, with the simplicity of a country maiden. If she has any charm, it is because she is just herself, as Nature made her.” Vane spoke with the air of a knight defending abandoned beauty.
“By the way (if you have finished your essay on an inamorata), I saw Ten Eyck to-day. He has come back from London, with a chance of being ambassador to Madrid, and is a better match than ever.”
“Ten Eyck? Who is Ten Eyck? Oh! I remember. Well, and what of it?” Vane added, after a pause.
“Oh! nothing, nothing at all. He is the son of one of our New York Senators, you know; and has a brilliant future before him.”
“Bah! The most brilliant future a woman can have is a future with a man who loves her.”
“And where did you pick up that aphorism? Not from your French education, surely? I believe Miss Thomas loves him.”
“I may not be up in American ideas, John, owing to the French education you sneer at; but I certainly was brought up to resent a remark like that, made of a young girl I like.”
“I don’t see what there is insulting in saying that a woman—for she is a woman, as you yourself admit—loves a man. I think it rather a compliment. American women rarely do, I can assure you. Their natures are like a New England spring—the sun must do a devilish deal of wooing before even so much as a green tendril is visible.” And Haviland, who was just then devoted to the young lady of Puritan descent whom he has since married, fetched a deep sigh.
Vane began to laugh again.