The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (5.1895)

46 The Pleasure-Pilgrim

there an initial, or just a date—and jerked it impatiently from him
on to a couch. He wished with all his heart that Mayne would stop,
would talk of something eise, would let him get away. The
young girl had interested him so much ; he had feit himself so
drawn towards her ; he had thought her so fresh, so innocent. But
Mayne, on the contrary, was warming to his subject, was enchanted
to have some one to listen to his stories, to discuss his theories, to
share his cynical amusement.

“ I don’t think, mind you,” he said, “ that she is a bit interested
herseif in tbe men she flirts with. I don’t think she gets any of
the usual sensations from it, you know. I think she just does it
for devilry, for a laugh. Sometimes I wonder whether she does it
with an idea of retribution. Perhaps some woman she was fond
of, perhaps her mother even—who knows ?—was badly treated at
the hands of a man. Perhaps this girl has constituted herseif the
Nemesis for her sex, and goes about seeing how many masculine
hearts she can break by way of revenge. Or can it be that she is
simply the newest development of the New Woman—she who in
England preaches and bores you, and in America practises and
pleases ? Yes, I believe she’s the American edition, and so new
that she hasn’t yet found her way into fiction. She’s the pioneer
of the army coming out of the West, that’s going to destroy the
existing scheme of things and rebuild it nearer to the heart’s
desire.”

“ Oh, damn it all, Mayne,” cried Campbell, rising abruptly,
“ why not say at once that she’s a wanton, and have done with it ?
Who wants to hear your rotten theories ? ” And he lighted his
candle without another word, and went off to bed.

It