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Honor Edgeworth - Ottawa's Present Tense by [pseud.] Vera
page 283 of 433 (65%)
was proposed, thus showing himself a complete sympathizer with his
new-made friends.

When he stepped into the "feminine" circle, he was equally well
received, he was so entirely different in his attractions from the stale
_beaux_ that had introduced him to their lady friends. His first words
invariably made impression, and everything he said or did was stamped
with the quietest, most languid, and yet most thoroughly fascinating
style, that victims were ready to fall unsought before him. There was a
resistless power in the deep, dreamy look his beautiful eyes constantly
affected, and in the unsteady strength of his shapely hand, as it
happened, no matter how inadvertently, to touch the dainty fingers of
some susceptible belle; and even if his personal advantages failed him
completely, there yet remained his most powerful attraction--his voice.
Ottawa girls had never heard such original and such pleasant little
nothings as Vivian Standish told them at every moment of his
conversation, and the perfect cultivation of the voice that thrilled
their blessed little hearts with its resistless accents, induced many a
fair and blushing maiden to hand him over her conquered heart, as a
pitiable trophy that he had so fairly and yet so mercilessly won.

But Vivian Standish, in coming among the Ottawaites, had not been
attracted for the purpose of making such havoc among feminine hearts.
Any man can do that, in any place, and under any circumstances, if he
has a mind to. A woman to him, was a useless and troublesome appendage,
after he had kissed the dainty hand that had emptied its substantial
treasure into his roomy pockets. Courtesy, like every other quality he
had taken the trouble to acquire, had its matter-of-fact mission to
perform, towards accomplishing a great part of his mercenary purposes,
and hence the sacrifices he so often made cheerfully and admirably for
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