The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-08-27
SUMMER FILTRATION
The Comedy and
Tragedy of Dreamy
Days.
DANGEROUS TYPES OF WOMEN.
The Fascinating Widow
and the Married
Flirt.

The girls don't have it all to them
selves in their struggles over the ne
cessary and totally inadequate supply
of men at the summer resorts. In the
first place, says Dorothy Dix in the New
Orleans Picayune, there is always the
inevitably widow, beautiful and fasci-
mating, gust beginning to take notice
ind with the late departed's life insur-
ance still in her pocket, so to speak.
When she enters the arena the case
Sakes on the aspect of those interesting
sffairs of which we read in the police
report, where an unsophisticated rustic
Engages in a game with friendly strang-
2rs on the cars. She is playing a game
In which all the cards are marked cards
end she knows them by the backs, and
In consequence she walks off with the
stakes. The married fiirt-the woman
MILO has achieved kind OF temporary
&idowhoed by going off for the sum
fer-is even more dangerous. Like
bhe widow she knows all the ropes and
possesses all the advantages that the
professional always has over the anna
eeur, with this further point in her ia
for, that there is a definite time limit
10 the Irritation. She knows, and the
fnan knows that when the vacation is
bver and the time comes to part, he
will look down upon her and sigh, and
she will look up and sigh, and both will
muKmur, "If we had only met sooner,
and that will end it. No tears, no fu-
ture making good Of reckless promises
and VOWS, no scenes, nothing more eX-
pected of either one, nothing to sneak
out of and feel mean about, which men
hate. 1t was game played on top of
the table between evenly matched play
ers, and it ends in a drew.
If the women to whom their sum-
mer Irritation is as necessary a stimu-
liant as his absinthe is to the French
boulebardier, would confine their
amusements to the unattached men, y
went on madame. Il should enjoy my
little comedy with light heart, but
they don't There aren't enough sin
gle men to go around, and it's when
the married men are drawn into it that
real trouble begins, and the comedy
turns into a tragedy. So far as ner
part of the business goes the fiirt has
generally gotten a soft snap. The mar
ried man is middle-aged, say. 1t has
been a long time since anybody told
him, indirectly and insidiously, of
course, that he was an Apollo. He's
gotten out of the way of thinking of
himself as fascinator. Perhaps, the
principal subjects of his wife's CONVEX
sation is to find fault with him about
the things he has done or left undone
In a minute ali that is changed. Here
is some pretty young creature, who, SO
far as he can see in his laundering
masculine stupidity, is throwing over
all the young fellows in the hotel for
him; she hangs on his words; she delft
ly compliments him, and it never &C.
cars to him he's a makeshift. BY
George,S he says, complacently, I don't
see that 1 look a day older than 1 did
when l was rs, and, of course, it's nat
urai I'd be more fascinating to a clever,
discriminating woman than those young
whipper- snappers that ought to be in
the naarsery right now. They've seen
nothing of life. Why their eonversa-
ton is as insipid as milk and water
Now l. and then he will sigh and
think how strange it is that
his wife doesn't appreciate him, then
he strons off with Mrs. or Miss Fir.
And they won't get home until after
late supper. And the women on the
gallery will ask his wife where
her husband is, and wonder where he
and Mrs. Flirt could have gone to b.
away so long, and the poor wife will
either be sitting up with a stereotyped
snile frozen on her face, or else be up
Btairs with her head under a pillow,
according to the manner of backbone
the good Lord gave her. OF course.
you and I-when it isn't our husband
ean see it an amounts to nothing. The
man means nothing and the fiirt means
nothing, eXcere to ainuse herself and
minister to her own vanity. but it is
dead, terrible reality to the wife, and
the woman VINO has once looked in the
face of that kind of gnawing jealousy
never again looks on lif's with an I'M
clouded eye.
Few can play with fire and not get
purneds Went on madame Sententious-
ly. "I remember a case-oh. it was
years and years ago-there was a pref
ty girl staying one summer at a place
.Shere l was. She was one of these
gentt3 cljnging, little creatures, with
wide opened eyes, that always made
You think of a startled fawn. Among
the men wass handsome, dashing fell
low, who came from, no one knew
where, ans was, no one knew what. In
q little wtsile it was very evident that
he was paying devoted attention to the
sirl, and her mother, anxious for her
daughter to revel in the spurious repu-
alton CT a summer belle, made no oh
lection. One night this i,irl came in
with great diamond flashing on her
finger, and that look that a woman s
Il
time-when it is glorifed with the ra-
dance OF FIRST love. Then, of course,
when it vas too late, her people set in
vestigation on foot to discover what
kind Of man he was who had won
their daughters heart. He proved per-
feetiy impossible, with past black
With every kind of crime. He didn't
even try to defend himself when CON
fronted with his record. I loved her,
he said, siraply, and then some latent
sparl- of nobility, perhaps lit by that
love, inspired him to do the only thing
he could, and he went away and left
her. But the girl never held up head
again. Her heart was broken, and be-
fore another year she died. 1t was
only an incident 81 a summer hotel, and
not half a dozen people ~>ger knew it,
but / reve.' see the way mothers let
their young daughters make indiscrim-
mate acquaintance at summer resorts
without wondering how often that little
tragedy repeats itself?" and madame
sighed softly to herself as she rose, for
the slipper gong had sounded.
ANGELo'S FIRST LOVE.