The tendency of present-day writers and authors of fiction stories to deal in suggestiveness is perhaps explained in the popularity of the magazines which cater to these outpourings. Gouverneur Morris is one of these, and who can say that Mr. Morris is not one of the foremost writers of the day? In his latest masterpiece, “The Wild Goose,” which appeared recently in Hearst’s, he writes, for instance:
One of the shoulder-straps of her night-gown had slipped so that Diana’s left breast was almost wholly bare. At her husband’s next words she hastily pulled the night-gown back into place, as she might have done if he had stepped suddenly into view.
“I could crawl to you on my hands and knees,” he said, “if I could lay my head on your breast just one little moment.”
“Frank,” she exclaimed, “I am so sorry! But please, please—this is no time to discuss what’s been and gone and happened. Do go back to bed.... Count the sheep going over the hurdle.... Don’t you know I’d do anything—anything—anything—except the things I can’t do?...”
There was a long silence. Then the man spoke again.
“Do have pity,” he said, “for Christ’s sake!”
* * *
Then we have Arthur Somers Roche who quite often reveals much truth in his fiction. Writing recently in the Cosmopolitan, Roche, perhaps unconsciously, reveals a time-worn trick of the woman of the street in “working” a male victim. He writes:
The difficulty with the Waiters’ Union had resulted in the engaging of girls as waitresses at the Central. An extremely pretty girl had just served Mr. Dabney with something. Inspiration had come to him as he started to tip her.
“Worth just fifty cents, m’dear, if I put it in your hand. Worth five dollars if I put it in your stocking. What say?”