A Rebellious Heroine

Name: A Rebellious Heroine
Author: John Kendrick Bangs

by John Kendrick Bangs

Pages: about 104
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 1.9 h at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 63 min at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

“I’ll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield.”
THE extraordinary failure of Miss Andrews, cast for a star rôle in Stuart Harley’s tale of Love and Villany, to appear upon the stage selected by the author for her débût, must be explained. As I have already stated at the close of the preceding chapter, it was entirely Harley’s own fault. He had studied Miss Andrews too superficially to grasp thoroughly the more refined subtleties of her nature, and he found out, at a moment when it was too late to correct his error, that she was not a woman to be slighted in respect to the conventionalities of polite life, however trifling to a man of Harley’s stamp these might seem to be. She was a stickler for form; and when she was summoned to go on board of an ocean steamship there to take part in a romance for the mere aggrandizement of a young author, she intended that he should not ignore the proprieties, even if in a sense the proprieties to which she referred did antedate the period at which his story was to open. She was willing to appear, but it seemed to her that Stuart Harley ought to see to it that she was escorted to the scene of action with the ceremony due to one of her position.
“What does he take me for?” she asked of Mrs. Corwin, indignantly, on the eve of her departure. “Am I a mere marionette, to obey his slightest behest, and at a moment’s notice? Am I to dance when Stuart Harley pulls the string?”
“Not at all, my dear Marguerite,” said Mrs. Corwin, soothingly. “If he thought that, he would not have selected you for his story. I think you ought to feel highly complimented that Mr. Harley should choose you for one of his books, and for such a conspicuous part, too. Look at me; do I complain? Am I holding out for the proprieties?

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A Rebellious Heroine

From the opening

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