Page:A strange, sad comedy (IA strangesadcomedy00seawiala).pdf/146

134 out of the field altogether. He put on his sweetest manner for her; his fine black eyes grew more and more expressive, and he used upon her a great deal of adroit flattery which was not without its effect. He gave her to understand that he considered her quite a woman of the world. This never fails to please an ingénue, while it is always wise to tell a woman of the world that she is an ingénue. Letty really thought that her visit to Newport and her week or two in New York had made another girl of her. So it had, in one way. It had taught her a new manner of arranging her hair, and several schemes of personal adornment, and she had seen a few pictures and some artistic interiors. But Letty was a girl of robust and well-formed character before she ever saw anything of the outside world at all, and she was not easily swayed by any mere external influences; but she was acutely sensitive to personal influences, and she felt the individual magnetism of Mr. Romaine very strongly. Sometimes she positively disliked him, and thought he affected to be young, although nobody could say he was frivolous—and thought him hard and cynical and generally unlovely. But to-day she found