The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-12-15
THE QUIET FLIRT.
NJ EVELYN THORPE.

The evident firt may be dangerous the quiet
firt is deadly. The one acts on principles of
amusement, vanity, the love OF conquest. The
other seems impeled by some fatalistic necessity.
With the evident hirt man knows where he stands
more or less. With the quiet hirt he has been
swamped in the deepest quagmire before he is even
conscious of having started the road to destruc-
ton.
The quiet hirts great weapon is Consciousness
She is rarely shy nowadays; she is not exactly
demure She turns upon a prospective victim, in
the early stages OF acquananceship, glance frank
and cool and open as boys She talks well, and
she is very self possessed. One could never dream
of her as anxious TO msrry-as a husband hunter
You would swear that she was serenely sufficient
unto herself She listens TO a mans opinions
attentively, she sees his point of view with such
intelligence shining out OF her clear, calm eyes that
with a pleasant, impersonal sort of approval, II
comes to him that this is girl-a fine, sensible
girl-a fellow could make friend of, indeed.
This is the first stage. Then the "felow" begins
to make little discoveries about the friend"
There depths of womanness i'm her, suggestions
OF passions, of tenderness, nc never would have
dreamed of. The revelation comes in glimpses
few and far between-and uncOnsciously quite
unconsciouslyD to the calm revealer. treasure
there for any she should ever come to for
So thinks the she is treating i'm such an Off
hand friendly fashion now. But then she prob
ably will never care for any one-she seems
indifferent. The thought makes the man little
bit grumpy, which the quiet dirt sees.
And this is the second stage. Stung trfe at
last by her persistent treatment of him as though
he were good, estimable father of family to
whom ii was pleasant and harmless to talk, he
assumes Ii e OF the air of Don Jud of the antaliz-
ing compl tents of the gay dcceiver, and finds her
grown ~ little colder, little stiller encoun-
tiers p ,..sapponted look, and knows that he has
hurt her vaguely and fallen below her estimate of
|him. All that follows is question of
time. Had he known he was falling in love he
would have saved himself from folly by flight
But the quiet nrt had hidden the fact from his
[own consciousness so deftly that when he at last
sees clearly he neither wants To escape nor can.
His first, hafsarcastic protestations she laughed
Fst good humoredy; his nettled, more insistent
avowals she met with surprise, tinctured with gem
tie modification -"She would not have believed
he would try TO frt with her? She had liked him
$50 much! They had been such good friends !"
His final passionate pleading meets with startled
response. "She had never thought of him in that
light. lie must wait"
And wait he does. To learn at last-eyes drop
ped on fan, soft cheek turned away-that she
couldn't think of il, though she likes him SO very
very much! Another will take his place And
another. Toward each she will lean with the sub
tlest hattery perfect trust. To each (for the tme)
she will seem a perfect She will never
warm toward any man-to her husband no more
than to another And she will continue her under
ground destruction, in fashion, till she dies
Netc York Mercury.
OF all the heavy bodies the heaviest is the