The American girl is past-mistress in the art of turning to account her little capital of beauty, youth, and virtue. To bring about the realisation of a dream, she knows how to employ all love's artillery, and if the object of her desire is recalcitrant, she can fire red-hot balls.
The late Alfred Assollant told how an American girl succeeded in making a young English lord marry her. In certain States of the Union it is sufficient to pass the night with a woman to be declared her husband by the law in the morning. This damsel, it appears, invited the young lord to sup in her own room. This is done, or was done, in certain parts of America, and morals were perhaps none the worse for it. The bait took, and at supper the scion of a lordly house got tipsy and went to sleep in the maiden's room, all ignorant of the law.
At daybreak there is a knocking at the door. Tableau! The fair one, all tearful and dishevelled, unbolts it, and ushers in the minister, who comes followed by the girl's parents and two witnesses, who are in the plot. The young lord in vain protests his innocence; he is married then and there, and the damsel only consents to his departure after having been bribed by a sum of a hundred thousand dollars.
Here is another story of the same stamp, which I heard told in America. It is not more authentic than Alfred Assollant's, but that which is very certain is that such an anecdote could not originate outside America. There are two kinds of truth: the truth that is true and the truth that might be true; in other words, there is truth to fact as well as truth to fiction.
This is the story, just as it was told:
An American girl adored a rich, handsome young fellow, who unhappily did not respond to her flame. One fine day a luminous idea occurs to her. She pretends to be ill, and sends to the young man to say she would like to see him. He hurries to the home of the fair invalid, who receives him lying on a sofa. She avows her love, and begs him to give her one kiss and bid her a long adieu. The swain bends over the sofa. The young lady encircles his neck with her arms, draws his head down, and imprints a long, lingering kiss on his lips. During this time, a photographer, hidden behind the hangings of the room, had his camera turned on the young couple. Next day the cunning lass sent her unconscious dupe a negative of the touching little scene of the day before, asking how many copies she should get printed. In face of the betraying collodion, and to save his honour, the youth saw that there was but one thing to be done, and that was to walk to the altar, which he did without a murmur.
So much for caricature, or, if you prefer it, for the truth that is not true.
To return to strict verity, it is perfectly certain that an American girl does not fear to let a man understand that she loves him, and that, if need be, she lets no false modesty prevent her from telling him so. Bettina, in "L'Abbé Constantin," divines that Jean Reynaud loves her, but that he is scrupulous about avowing it, and, in order to avoid her, asks to be sent to join another garrison. She comes to him frankly. She knows that Jean will not make the advances, and she does it instead. The scene is as true to American life as it is pretty. It is the faithful portrait of an American girl, a perfect photograph: one of those artistic photographs that M. Ludovic Halévy is so clever at.