r they, like sheep, readily follow the well-known leader.
And perhaps--Gerome might return.

One winter's night late, after I had gone to my room, two men called.
Ordinarily I should have excused myself, but something--we call it fate,
I believe--prompted me to see them. One was an old friend--a friend of
the family. The other a thorough man of the world, and--I knew it
intuitively--my desired victim. He was an idle, indifferent, Social
Drifter. He was an artist by profession; his inclination--and his
leisure--made him more of a _diletante_ than any thing else. He was
more notorious than famous. He had done nothing to give himself fame,
but he had done many odd things which gave him notoriety. I have always
had a secret but deep-rooted love of notoriety; it makes my blood tingle
with a most delicious sensation. I knew that he could give me a great
deal of _quiet notoriety_ which was the one thing needed to make me
a success--notice, notice, constant notice! The surgeon may be ever so
skillful and yet if his skill be not known his instruments, rusted with
disuse, will cling to their unopened cases and his hand will forget its
cunning. So is it with the flirtatious maiden; she must hang forth a
sign which may be read, and quickly, even by those who run.

My artist lover was not the ideal slender, pale-faced youth; he was not
beautiful, he was not good looking. But perhaps I should have loved him
if he had been the one, and tolerated him longer if he had been the
other. He was aggressive; he was open, direct always; he was not blunt,
yet he was free from the all-prevalent use of the _preliminary_.
He loved me! And he very soon told me as much and more. He made no
concealment of the fact to me, or indeed to others. He loved me, was
proud of it, and glad to have all know of it. Of course this was just
what I wanted, for he was not a susceptible man. He had not been in love
for years. His declarations meant something, and people knew it. Thus
was I brought into notice. "Who, pray, is this Mary Lee Manley?" they
began to ask. "Is she the same scrawny, ugly girl who was such a flat
failure in society two years ago?" "What has she done to herself? She
is certainly not a beauty but she has improved, just how we are unable
to say."

The men began to find me, hunted me up, and were unable to realize that
I was that self same individual whom they had so diligently avoided
her first season out. All the while my affair went on, syst