Winter Dreams

[goal_joel]

He was, as he found before the summer ended, one of a varying dozen who circulated about her. Each of them had at one time been favored above all others -- about half of them still basked in the solace of occasional sentimental revivals. Whenever one showed signs of dropping out through long neglect, she granted him a brief honeyed hour, which encouraged him to tag along for a year or so longer. Judy made these forays upon the helpless and defeated without malice, indeed half conscious that there was anything mischievous in what she did.

excerpted from F. Scott Fitzgerald's Winter Dreams