“Well, what about Mr. Westcott?  Is that his name?” asked Gabriella, without malice.  As a study Florrie had always interested her, for she regarded her less as an individual than as an awful example of the utter futility of moral maxims.  Florrie was without intelligence, without feeling, without imagination, virtue, breeding, or good taste, yet possessing none of these qualities, she had by sheer beauty and “dash” achieved all the ends for which these qualities usually strive.  Good humour she had as long as one did not get in her way; but, beyond this single redeeming grace, she was as empty of substance as a tinted shell filled with sea foam.  If power and efficiency are the two supreme attributes of success, then by all the laws and principles of logic, Florrie ought to have been a failure.  But she was not a failure.  She was a fool whose incomparable foolishness had conferred not only prosperity, but happiness upon her.  She shone, she scintillated, she diffused the glow of success.  Though she was undeserving of admiration, she had been surfeited on it from her childhood; though she was devoid of the moral excellence which should command love, by a flashing glance or a waving curl, she could bring the most exalted love down from the heavens.  There was no question that Algernon had really loved her to distraction, and Algernon was a man of sense, of breeding, of distinction.  As for Florrie, she had, of course, as little capacity for loving as she had for thinking.

“Tom Westcott!  I declare, Gabriella, I am almost ashamed to tell you about him.  You’ve never been to a Virginia summer resort, so you couldn’t understand that there is something about a Virginia summer resort that just seems to make any man better than none at all.  You get so bored, you know, that you’d flirt with a lamp-post if there wasn’t anything human around; and when you haven’t laid eyes on a real sure enough man for several months, it’s surprising how easy it is to take up with the imitation ones.  Of course, I don’t mean that Tom wasn’t all right as far as family and all that goes; but he was simply no earthly account—­he was just mean all through, and as soon as I found it out, I packed right straight up and left him.  After Algy I couldn’t have stood one of that sort, and there was no sense in my trying to.  Life is too short, I always say, for experiments.  There’s no use sticking to a bad job when you can get away from it.  That’s the trouble with so many women, you know; they try and try to stand the wrong man when they know all the time that it isn’t a particle of use, and that they are just bringing wrinkles into their faces; and then by the time they give up, they’re all worn out and it’s too late to look about for another chance.  Now, I’ve seen too much of that kind of thing, and so I thought two weeks weren’t long enough to bring wrinkles in my face, but they were plenty long for me to find out whether or not I could stand any man on earth.  So here I am in little old New York instead of being stuck away in some God-forsaken Virginia town, where there isn’t even a theatre, darning stockings for a family of children.  But there’s no use talking about that—­” And Florrie, who had been born a lady on her father’s side, adjusted her pompadour under the high bandeau of her hat, and rose with a dashing air from the sofa.