Booth Tarkington 
The Flirt (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) 

In this 1913 novel, Cora Madison, a young woman who enjoys manipulating men, sets her sights on Valentine Corliss, who returns to Capitol City after an extended absence.  But Corliss is not what he appears to be, and the master manipulator may find herself manipulated . . . .

Circa l’autore

Booth Tarkington (1869-1946) was an American novelist best known for his depictions of life in small Midwestern cities. A lover of the theater, he dramatized several of his own books. Today, he is most noted as the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Magnificent Ambersons and for the novel Alice Adams, about the frustrated ambitions of a lower middle class young woman.