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At first sight I should pronounce her to be a silly woman, governed by vanity and the whim of the moment: but those who know her better than I do, believe her to be a woman of considerable talents, inordinately fond of power, and uniformly intent upon her own interest, using coquetry only as a means to govern our sex, and frivolity as a mask for her ambition.
Self-abnegation, attention to their duty, seem to them so natural that one scarcely dares to praise them. "There is one thing that I must praise them for particularly that they always seem to keep the beautiful charming coquetry that belongs to every woman. I often arrived without warning. I never saw hair disarranged or dress neglected.
True, if this coquetry resulted in the condemnation of one's lover to death, one would speedily correct one's self of it. But, naturally, gentlemen, you would not think of atoning for my cruelty by offering the poor young man such a consolation as this." After saying these words in an animated, ironical tone, Edmee burst into tears.
You, gentlemen, probably have observed it even more than I have; but when he sees a slim girl with yellow curls capering around in tights behind the footlights, a young man's imagination runs riot and he fancies her the incarnation of coquetry and the personification of vivacious loveliness. I admit it the present Mrs. Dillingham was a dancer.
To do as they did, although I considered it a little silly, I wrote her name in cipher on the covers of my copy-books; in every way and manner I sought to persuade myself of the ardor of my passion, but I am bound to admit that the whole thing was a little artificial, for the amusing coquetry that Jeanne and I had indulged in early in our acquaintance had developed into a true and great friendship, a hereditary friendship I may call it, a continuation of that felt by our ancestors long before our birth.
Elise Rouquet, however, had bought herself a pocket mirror, a large round one, in which she did not weary of contemplating herself, finding herself quite pretty, and verifying from minute to minute the progress of her cure with a coquetry which, now that her monstrous face was becoming human again, made her purse her lips and try a variety of smiles.
With this she instantly summoned one of her gentlemen, in order to break off the interview, fearing that Shirley was about to enter again upon a discussion of the whole subject, and again to attempt the delivery of the Earl's letter. In all this there was much of superannuated coquetry, no doubt, and much of Tudor despotism, but there was also a strong infusion of artifice.
"Now, my lord," cried Lady Geraldine with a tone and look of comic vexation, "this is really the most provoking thing imaginable; you have no idea how you distress me, nor of what exquisite pleasures you deprive me all the pleasures of coquetry; legitimate pleasures, in certain circumstances, as I am instructed to think them by one of the first moral authorities.
Begun in pique, or vanity, or devilment, whatever it may have been at the start, her indifference at first, her coquetry, her wiles, her defiance of his powers had spurred, fascinated and finally maddened him. Then, when she would have drawn back, his apparent, his acted or his actual desperation terrified her, and, all too late, her own battered heart cried out for relief.
"It is the cloth that is easy broke," explained she, when she lifted her suffused but still smiling face, "and I a new one will have when I haf my money, my vage." With that Marie was gone, her poor gown scalloping around her heavy, backward heels, her smiling glance of artless coquetry over her shoulder to the last, and the boy and the old clerk looked at each other. The boy whistled.
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