Read "This Marrying" by Margaret Culkin Banning online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It was an amazingly pleasant lunch. Horatia was not too sophisticated in this matter of eating with men in public restaurants and under the flattering charm of Jim Langley's interest and attention she sparkled with excitement and response. She liked him. She liked his easy careless manners and his half-mocking, half-kind indulgence towards her remarks and the real amusement in his smile and the skill he showed in ordering food. And Langley across from her, along with his faint note of self-mockery, showed that he enjoyed himself too, for Horatia's face was young and her mind was clear and above all she did not seem tired but fresh and vigorous. He asked her about herself, subtly keeping the conversation on her, and she told him of the house on the hill and her married sister and her aunt and uncle and the neighbors.
"They are kind, you know," she finished, "but they are so simple that they all call me intellectual and set me apart as queer."