Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE PANTECHNICON " How do you do, Miss Earp? " said Denry, in a worldly manner which he had acquired for himself by taking the most effective features of the manners of several prominent citizens, and piecing them together so that as a whole they formed Denry's manner. "Oh! How do you do, Mr. Machin?" said Ruth Earp, who had opened her door to him at the corner of Tudor Passage and St. Luke's Square. It was an afternoon in July. Denry wore a new summer suit, whose pattern indicated not only present prosperity but the firm belief that prosperity would continue. As for Ruth, that plain but piquant girl was in one of her simpler costumes; blue linen; no jewelry. Her hair was in its usual calculated disorder; its outer fleeces held the light. She was now at least twenty-five, and her gaze disconcertingly combined extreme maturity with extreme candour. At one moment a man would be saying to himself: "This woman knows more of the secrets of human nature than I can ever know." And the next he would be saying to himself: " What a simple little thing she is! " The career of nearly every man is marked at the sharp corners with such women. Speaking generally, Ruth Earp's demeanour was hard and challenging. It was evident that she could not be subject to the common weaknesses of her sex. Denry was glad. A youth of quick intelligence, he had perceived all the dangers of the mission upon which he was engaged, and had planned his precautions. " May I come in a minute?" he asked in a purely business tone. There was no hint in that tone of the fact that once she had accorded him a supper-dance. " Please do," said Ruth. An agreeable flouncing swish of linen skirts as she turned to precede him down the passage! But he ignored it. That is to say, he easily steeled himse...