The Other GirlsWhitney, A. D. T. (Adeline Dutton Train)
General
The Other Girls
Whitney, A. D. T. (Adeline Dutton Train)
Family life -- Fiction; Women -- Fiction
Marion Kent always made you think of things that never at all
belonged to her. She gave you an impression of something that she
seemed to stand for, which she could not wholly be. Her zephyrine,
with its silky shine, hinted at the real lustres of far more costly
fabrics; her hat, perked up with puffs of grenadine (how all these
things do rhyme and repeat their little Frenchy tags of endings!)
put you in mind of lace and feathers, and a general float and
flutter of gay millinery; her step and expression, as she came
airily into this second-rate old car, put on for the "journeymen"
train, brought up a notion, almost, of some ball-room advent,
flushed and conscious and glad with the turning of all admiring eyes
upon it; her face, even, without being absolutely beautiful,
sparkled out at you a certain will and force and intent of beauty
that shot an idea or suggestion of brilliant prettiness instantly
through your unresisting imagination, compelling you to fill out
whatever was wanting; and what more, can you explain, do feature and
bearing that come nearest to perfect fulfillment effect?
The middle-aged cabinet-maker looked over his newspaper at her as
she came in; he had little daughters of his own growing up to
girlhood, and there might have been some thought in his head not
purely admiring; but still he looked up. The knot of office-boys,
crowding and skylarking across a couple of seats, stopped their
shuffle and noise for a second, and one said, "My! ain't she
stunning?" A young fellow, rather spruce in his own way also, with
precise necktie, deep paper cuffs and dollar-store studs and initial
sleeve-buttons, touched his hat with an air of taking credit to
himself, as she glanced at him; and another, in a sober old gray
suit, with only a black ribbon knotted under his linen collar,
turned slightly the other way as she approached, and with something
like a frown between his brows, looked out of the window at a
wood-pile.
Marion's cheeks were a tint brighter, and her white teeth seemed to
flash out a yet more determined smile, as, passing him by, she
seated herself with friendly bustle among some girls a little behind
him.
"In again, Marion?" said one. "I thought you'd left."
"Only in for a transient," said Marion, with a certain clear tone
that reminded one of the stage-trainer's direction to "speak to the
galleries." "Nellie Burton is sick, and Lufton sent for me. I'll do
for a month or so, and like it pretty well; then I shall have a
tiff, I suppose, and fling it up again; I can't stand being ordered
round longer than that."
"Or longer than the _new_ lasts," said the other slyly, touching the
drapery sleeve of the zephyrine. "It _is_ awful pretty, Marry!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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