The Flirt

le to observe anything except the heat. The coat was shaped delicately; it outlined the wearer, and, fitting him as women's clothes fit women, suggested an effeminacy not an attribute of the tal

lluminant of our great central levels, but although it esteems itself an established cosmopolitan thoroughfare,

ld, he thought, had changed. It was still long and straight, still shaded by trees so noble that they were betrothed, here and there, high over the wide white roadway, the shimmering tunnels thus

w, however, there was little left of the jig-saw's hare-brained ministrations; but the growing pains of the adolescent city had wrought some madness here. There had been a revolution which was a rio

n laid its long strips of steaming brown. Locusts, serenaders of the heat, invisible among the branches, rasped their interminable cadences, competing bitterly with the monotonous chattering of lawn-mowers propelled by glistening black men over the level swards beneath. And though porch and terrace were left to vacant wicker chairs and swinging-seats, and to flowers and plants in jars and green boxes, and

d, one specimen betokened a family of position and affluence; two, one on each side of the front walk, spoke of a noble opulence; two and a fountain were overwhelming. He wondered in what obscure thickets that once proud herd now grazed; and then he smiled, a

whereon he had conquered; and he wondered if "the Lindley boys" still li

se more familiar to him than any other, and gave i

racked and peeled that the haggard red bricks were exposed, like a beggar through the holes in his coat. It was one of those houses which are large without being commodious; its very tall, very narrow windows, with their attenuated, rusty inside shutters, boasting to the passerby of high ceilings but betraying the miserly floor spaces. At each side of the front door was a high and cramped bay-window, one of them insanely culminating in a little six-sided tower of slate, and both of them g

high, dim, rather sorrowful hall disclosed beyond the open double doors. They were stiff little chairs of an inconsequent, mongrel pattern; armless, with perforated wooden seats; legs tortured by the lathe to a semblance of buttons strung on a rod; and they had that day received a streaky coat o

e remotely. Somewhere in the interior a woman's voice, not young, sang a repeated fragment of "Lead, Kindly Light," to the accompaniment of a flapping dust-cloth, sounds which ceased upon a second successful encounter with the bell. Ensue

n in his own kindling glance. She was very white and black, this lady. Tall, trim, clear, she looked cool in spite of the black winter skirt she wore, an effect helped somewhat, perhaps, by the crisp freshness of her white waist, with its masculine collar and slim black tie, and undoubtedly by the even and lustreless light ivory of her s

tion-accomplished by adding something to a rather quick inclination of the body from the hips, with the back and neck held straight expressed deference wit

ect upon the recipient. Su

home? My name is

indicated an open d

u wait i

t the sentence unfinished, for he was already alone, and at liberty

n a common challenge to the visitor to take comfort in any of it. A once-gilt gas chandelier hung from the distant ceiling, with three globes of frosted glass, but undeniable evidence that five were intended; and two of the three had been severely bitten. There was a hostile little coal-grate, making a mouth under a mantel of imitation black marble, behind an old blue-satin fire-screen upon which red cat-tails and an owl over a pond had been roughly embroidered in high relief, this owl motive being the inspiration

ldest hare-brain could picture any one coming to read or write, that he bestowed upon it a particular, frowning attention, and so discovered

in emphatic but undistinguishable complaint. A whispering followed, and a woman exclaimed protestin

hable, a great deal more insistently feminine; though it was to be seen that they were sisters. This one had eyes almost as dark as the other's, but these were not cool; they were sweet, unrestful, and seeking; brilliant with a vivacious hunger: and not Diana but huntresses more ardent have such eyes. Her hair was much lighter than her sister's; it was the col

d from the crown of her charming head to the tall heels of her graceful white suede slippers, heels of a sweete

action of a second for another glan

, gave a little gasp of surprise, and halted

ur pardon. I didn't know there was--

uisite lashes. Her voice was one to stir all men: it needs not many words for a supremely beautiful "speaking-voice" to be recognized for what it i

rning to leave the room;

g else of yours h

ing at the door, looking at him

waste-basket and repeated the bow he had made at th

I

st it. It be

o be there!" She stepped to take it from him, her eyes upon his in char

u know it w

e would

of honest pleasure and admiration, such as only an artist may f

f the person for whom the visitor had asked at the d

cuffed white shirtsleeves; and he carried in one mottled hand the ruins of a palm-leaf fan, in the other a balled wet handkerchief which released an aroma of camphor upon the banana-burdened air. He bore evidences of inadequate adj

nds. "Well, well, well! I remember you as a boy. Wouldn't have known you, of

ally vital, he concluded his greeting incon

tle girl," said

man's absurdities, which had reached their climax in her dismissal. Her parting look, falling from Corlis