One cannot understand defilement without
laying hands to pitch, which is very sticky, while there be plenty
willing to undertake the experiment. All of which is of small concern,
beyond the fact that it gave Mrs. Eppingwell ground for grievance, and
bred for her a greater love in the Greek girl's heart.
III
And in this way things went along for a month,--Mrs. Eppingwell striving
to withhold the man from the Greek dancer's blandishments against the
time of Flossie's coming; Flossie lessening the miles each day on the
dreary trail; Freda pitting her strength against the model-woman; the
model-woman straining every nerve to land the prize; and the man moving
through it all like a flying shuttle, very proud of himself, whom he
believed to be a second Don Juan.
It was nobody's fault except the man's that Loraine Lisznayi at last
landed him. The way of a man with a maid may be too wonderful to know,
but the way of a woman with a man passeth all conception; whence the
prophet were indeed unwise who would dare forecast Floyd Vanderlip's
course twenty-four hours in advance. Perhaps the model-woman's
attraction lay in that to the eye she was a handsome animal; perhaps she
fascinated him with her old-world talk of palaces and princes; leastwise
she dazzled him whose life had been worked out in uncultured roughness,
and he at last agreed to her suggestion of a run down the river and a
marriage at Forty Mile.
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