No. II Acquiescent and Encouraging
(Miss Armstrong replies on a dull blue, canvas-textured page, over which her stub-pen wanders in fashionable negligence. She arrives on the third page at the matter in hand.)
Ah, it was very sweet, your literary love-letter. Considerable style, as you would say, but too palpably artificial. If you want to deceive this woman, my dear sir trifler, you must disguise your mockery more artfully.
Why didn’t I find you at the Stanwoods’? I had Nettie send you a card. I had promised you to a dozen delightful women, “our choicest lot,” who were all agog to see my supercilious and dainty sir…. Why will you always play with things? Perhaps you will say because I am not worth serious moments. You play with everything, I believe, and that is banal. Ever sincerely,
Edith Armstrong