It is not clear why Mr. Frank Swinnerton has called his new novel Coquette. A coquette, one had always understood, was a lady who loved the work for its own sake, who found the evocation and frustration of desire a satisfying sport in itself; but his Sally Minto was moved in her first encounter with a man by real passion and in her second by ambition. A novel about a coquette would be primarily … a discussion of the mystery of athleticism, that passion which leads human beings to spend their lives attaining proficiency in occupations which are obviously not of a kind that will print through this world into the next and be placed to their credit in eternity. But Sally Minto's story is something far other than this. It is first of all a virtuosic study of character. Throughout the book there are signs that Mr. Swinnerton...