One principal reason
of her success in leading on men to make fools of themselves over
her, to their everlasting regret afterward, lay in the fact that,
in spite of all the gross irregularities of her life, she
remained chaste. She deserved no credit for such restraint,
since it was a matter purely of temperament, not of resolve.
The girl saw in Mary Turner the possibilities of a ladylike
personality that might mean much financial profit in the devious
ways of which she was a mistress. With the frankness
characteristic of her, she proceeded to paint glowing pictures of
a future shared to the undoing of ardent and fatuous swains.
Mary Turner listened with curiosity, but she was in no wise moved
to follow such a life, even though it did not necessitate
anything worse than a fraudulent playing at love, without
physical degradation. So, she steadfastly continued her
refusals, to the great astonishment of Aggie, who actually could
not understand in the least, even while she believed the other's
declaration of innocence of the crime for which she was serving a
sentence.
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