Chapter 3. Her Diary

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_ CHAPTER III. HER DIARY: BEING THE DAILY JOURNAL OF THE SUB-DEB

JANUARY 1st. I have today recieved this dairy from home, having come back a few days early to make up a French Condition.

Weather, clear and cold.

New Year's dinner. Roast chicken (Turkey being very expencive), mashed Turnips, sweet Potatos and minse Pie.

It is my intention to record in this book the details of my Daily Life, my thoughts which are to sacred for utterence, and my ambitions. Because who is there to whom I can speak them? I am surounded by those who exist for the mere Pleasures of the day, or whose lives are bound up in Resitations.

For instance, at dinner today, being mostly faculty and a few girls who live in the Far West, the conversation was entirely on buying a Phonograph for dancing because the music teacher has the meazles and is quarentined in the infirmery. And on Miss Everett's couzin, who has written a play.

When one looks at Miss Everett, one recognises that no couzin of hers could write a play.

New Year's resolution--to help some one every day. Today helped Mademoiselle to put on her rubers.

JANUARY 2ND. Today I wrote my French theme, beginning, "Les hommes songent moins a leur AME QU A leur CORPS." Mademoiselle sent for me and objected, saying that it was not a theme for a young girl, and that I must write a new one, on the subject of pears. How is one to develope in this atmosphere?

Some of the girls are coming back. They stragle in, and put the favers they got at Cotillions on the dresser, and their holaday gifts, and each one relates some amorus experience while at home. Dear dairy, is there somthing wrong with me, that Love has passed me by? I have had offers of Devotion but none that apealed to me, being mostly either to young or not atracting me by physicle charm. I am not cold, although frequently acused of it, Beneath my fridgid Exterior beats a warm heart. I intend to be honest in this dairy, and so I admit it. But, except for passing Fansies--one being, alas, for a married man--I remain without the Divine Passion.

What must it be to thrill at the aproach of the loved Form? To harken to each ring of the telephone bell, in the hope that, if it is not the Idolised Voice, it is at least a message from it? To waken in the morning and, looking around the familiar room, to muze: "Today I may see him--on the way to the Post Office, or rushing past in his racing car." And to know that at the same moment HE to is muzing: "Today I may see her, as she exercises herself at basket ball, or mounts her horse for a daily canter!"

Although I have no horse. The school does not care for them, considering walking the best exercise.

Have flunked the French again, Mademoiselle not feeling well, and marking off for the smallest Thing.

Today's helpfull Deed--asisted one of the younger girls with her spelling.

JANUARY 4TH. Miss Everett's couzin's play is coming here. The school is to have free tickets, as they are "trying it on the dog." Which means seeing if it is good enough for the large cities.

We have desided, if Everett marks us well in English from now on, to aplaud it, but if she is unpleasent, to sit still and show no interest.

JANUARY 5TH, 6TH, 7TH, 8TH. Bad weather, which is depressing to one of my Temperment. Also boil on noze.

A few helpfull Deeds--nothing worth putting down.

JANUARY 9TH. Boil cut.

Again I can face my Image in my mirror, and not shrink.

Mademoiselle is sick and no French. MISERICORDE!

Helpfull Deed--sent Mademoiselle some fudge, but this school does not encourage kindness. Reprimanded for cooking in room. School sympathises with me. We will go to Miss Everett's couzin's play, but we will dam it with faint praise.

JANUARY 10TH. I have written this Date, and now I sit back and regard it. As it is impressed on this white paper, so, Dear Dairy, is it written on my Soul. To others it may be but the tenth of January. To me it is the day of days. Oh, tenth of January! Oh, Monday. Oh, day of my awakning!

It is now late at night, and around me my schoolmates are sleeping the sleep of the young and Heart free. Lights being off, I am writing by the faint luminocity of a candle. Propped up in bed, my mackinaw coat over my ROBE DE NUIT for warmth, I sit and dream. And as I dream I still hear in my ears his final words: "My darling. My woman!"

How wonderfull to have them said to one Night after Night, the while being in his embrase, his tender arms around one! I refer to the heroine in the play, to whom he says the above raptureous words.

Coming home from the theater tonight, still dazed with the revelation of what I am capable of, once aroused, I asked Miss Everett if her couzin had said anything about Mr. Egleston being in love with the Leading Character. She observed:

"No. But he may be. She is very pretty."

"Possably," I remarked. "But I should like to see her in the morning, when she gets up."

All the girls were perfectly mad about Mr. Egleston, although pretending merely to admire his Art. But I am being honest, as I agreed at the start, and now I know, as I sit here with the soft, although chilly breeses of the night blowing on my hot brow, now I know that this thing that has come to me is Love. Morover, it is the Love of my Life. He will never know it, but I am his. He is exactly my Ideal, strong and tall and passionate. And clever, to. He said some awfuly clever things.

I beleive that he saw me. He looked in my direction. But what does it matter? I am small, insignifacant. He probably thinks me a mere child, although seventeen.

What matters, oh Dairy, is that I am at last in Love. It is hopeless. Just now, when I had written that word, I buried my face in my hands. There is no hope. None. I shall never see him again. He passed out of my life on the 11:45 train. But I love him. MON DIEU, how I love him!

JANUARY 11TH. We are going home. WE ARE GOING HOME. WE ARE GOING HOME. WE ARE GOING HOME!

Mademoiselle has the meazles.

JANUARY 13TH. The Familey managed to restrain its ecstacy on seeing me today. The house is full of people, as they are having a Dinner-Dance tonight. Sis had moved into my room, to let one of the visitors have hers, and she acted in a very unfilial manner when she came home and found me in it.

"Well!" she said. "Expelled at last?"

"Not at all," I replied in a lofty manner. "I am here through no fault of my own. And I'd thank you to have Hannah take your clothes off my bed."

She gave me a bitter glanse.

"I never knew it to fail!" she said. "Just as everything is fixed, and we're recovering from you're being here for the Holadays, you come back and stir up a lot of trouble. What brought you, anyhow?"

"Meazles."

She snached up her ball gown.

"Very well," she said. "I'll see that you're quarentined, Miss Barbara, all right. And If you think you're going to slip downstairs tonight after dinner and WORM yourself into this party, I'll show you."

She flounsed out, and shortly afterwards mother took a minute from the Florest, and came upstairs.

"I do hope you are not going to be troublesome, Barbara," she said. "You are too young to understand, but I want everything to go well tonight, and Leila ought not to be worried."

"Can't I dance a little?"

"You can sit on the stairs and watch." She looked fidgity. "I--I'll send up a nice dinner, and you can put on your dark blue, with a fresh collar, and--it ought to satisfy you, Barbara, that you are at home and posibly have brought the meazles with you, without making a lot of fuss. When you come out----"

"Oh, very well," I murmured, in a resined tone. "I don't care enough about it to want to dance with a lot of Souses anyhow."

"Barbara!" said mother.

"I suppose you have some one on the String for her," I said, with the ABANDON of my thwarted Hopes. "Well, I hope she gets him. Because if not I darsay I shall be kept in the Cradle for years to come."

"You will come out when you reach a proper Age," she said, "if your Impertanence does not kill me off before my Time."

Dear Dairy, I am fond of my mother, and I felt repentent and stricken.

So I became more agreable, although feeling all the time that she does not and never will understand my Temperment. I said:

"I don't care about Society, and you know it, mother. If you'll keep Leila out of this room, which isn't much but is my Castle while here, I'll probably go to bed early."

"Barbara, sometimes I think you have no afection for your Sister."

I had agreed to honesty January first, so I replied.

"I have, of course, mother. But I am fonder of her while at school than at home. And I should be a better Sister if not condemed to her old things, including hats which do not suit my Tipe."

Mother moved over magestically to the door and shut it. Then she came and stood over me.

"I've come to the conclusion, Barbara," she said, "to appeal to your better Nature. Do you wish Leila to be married and happy?"

"I've just said, mother----"

"Because a very interesting thing is happening," said mother, trying to look playfull. "I--a chance any girl would jump at."

So here I sit, Dear Dairy, while there are sounds of revelery below, and Sis jumps at her chance, which is the Honorable Page Beres ford, who is an Englishman visiting here because he has a weak heart and can't fight. And father is away on business, and I am all alone.

I have been looking for a rash, but no luck.

Ah me, how the strains of the orkestra recall that magic night in the theater when Adrian Egleston looked down into my eyes and although ostensably to an actress, said to my beating heart: "My Darling! My Woman!"

3 A. M. I wonder if I can controll my hands to write.

In mother's room across the hall I can hear furious Voices, and I know that Leila is begging to have me sent to Switzerland. Let her beg. Switzerland is not far from England, and in England----

Here I pause to reflect a moment. How is this thing possible? Can I love to members of the Other Sex? And if such is the Case, how can I go on with my Life? Better far to end it now, than to perchance marry one, and find the other still in my heart. The terrable thought has come to me that I am fickel.

Fickel or polygamus--which?

Dear Dairy, I have not been a good girl. My New Year's Resolutions have gone to airey nothing.

The way they went was this: I had settled down to a quiet evening, spent with his beloved picture which I had clipped from a newspaper. (Adrian's. I had not as yet met the other.) And, as I sat in my chamber, I grew more and more desolate. I love Life, although pessamistic at times. And it seemed hard that I should be there, in exile, while my Sister, only 20 months older, was jumping at her chance below.

At last I decided to try on one of Sis's frocks and see how I looked in it. I though, if it looked all right, I might hang over the stairs and see what I then scornfully termed "His Nibs." Never again shall I so call him.

I got an evening gown from Sis's closet, and it fitted me quite well, although tight at the waste for me, owing to Basket Ball. It was also to low, so that when I had got it all hooked about four inches of my LINGERIE showed. As it had been hard as anything to hook, I was obliged to take the scizzors and cut off the said LINGERIE. The result was good, although very DECOLLTE. I have no bones in my neck, or practicaly so.

And now came my moment of temptation. How easy to put my hair up on my head, and then, by the servant's staircase, make my way to the seen below!

I, however, considered that I looked pale, although Mature. I looked at least nineteen. So I went into Sis's room, which was full of evening wraps but emty, and put on a touch of rouge. With that and my eyebrows blackend, I would not have known myself, had I not been certain it was I and no other.

I then made my way down the Back Stairs.

Ah me, Dear Dairy, was that but a few hours ago? Is it but a short time since Mr. Beresford was sitting at my feet, thinking me a DEBUTANTE, and staring soulfully into my very heart? Is it but a matter of minutes since Leila found us there, and in a manner which revealed the true feeling she has for me, ordered me to go upstairs and take off Maidie Mackenzie's gown?

(Yes, it was not Leila's after all. I had forgotten that Maidie had taken her room. And except for pulling it somewhat at the waste, I am sure I did not hurt the old thing.)

I shall now go to bed and dream. Of which one I know not. My heart is full. Romanse has come at last into my dull and dreary life. Below, the revelers have gone. The flowers hang their herbacious heads. The music has flowed away into the river of the past. I am alone with my Heart.

JANUARY 14TH. How complacated my Life grows, Dear Dairy! How full and yet how incomplete! How everything begins and nothing ends!

HE is in town.

I discovered it at breakfast. I knew I was in for it, and I got down early, counting on mother breakfasting in bed. I would have felt better if father had been at home, because he understands somwhat the way They keep me down. But he was away about an order for shells (not sea; war), and I was to bear my chiding alone. I had eaten my fruit and serial, and was about to begin on sausage, when mother came in, having risen early from her slumbers to take the decorations to the Hospital.

"So here you are, wreched child!" she said, giving me one of her coldest looks. "Barbara, I wonder if you ever think whither you are tending."

I ate a sausage.

What, Dear Dairy, was there to say?

"To disobey!" she went on. "To force yourself on the atention of Mr. Beresford, in a borowed dress, with your eyelashes blackend and your face painted----"

"I should think, mother," I observed, "that if he wants to marry into this family, and is not merely being dragged into it, that he ought to see the worst at the start." She glired, without speaking. "You know," I continued, "it would be a dreadfull thing to have the Ceramony performed and everything to late to back out, and then have ME Sprung on him. It wouldn't be honest, would it?"

"Barbara!" she said in a terrable tone. "First disobedience, and now sarcasm. If your father was only here! I feel so alone and helpless."

Her tone cut me to the Heart. After all she was my own mother, or at least maintained so, in spite of numerous questions enjendered by our lack of resemblence, moral as well as physicle. But I did not offer to embrase her, as she was at that moment poring out her tea. I hid my misery behind the morning paper, and there I beheld the fated vision. Had I felt any doubt as to the state of my afections it was settled then. My Heart leaped in my bosom. My face sufused. My hands trembled so that a piece of sausage slipped from my fork. HIS PICTURE LOOKED OUT AT ME WITH THAT WELL REMEMBERED GAZE FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE MORNING PAPER.

Oh, Adrian, Adrian!

Here in the same city as I, looking out over perchance the same newspaper to perchance the same sun, wondering--ah, what was he wondering?

I was not even then, in that first Rapture, foolish about him. I knew that to him I was probably but a tender memory. I knew, to, that he was but human and probably very concieted. On the other hand, I pride myself on being a good judge of character, and he carried Nobility in every linament. Even the obliteration of one eye by the printer could only hamper but not destroy his dear face.

"Barbara," mother said sharply. "I am speaking. Are you being sulkey?"

"Pardon me, mother," I said in my gentlest tones. "I was but dreaming." And as she made no reply, but rang the bell visciously, I went on, pursuing my line of thought. "Mother, were you ever in Love?"

"Love! What sort of Love?"

I sat up and stared at her.

"Is there more than one sort?" I demanded.

"There is a very silly, schoolgirl Love," she said, eyeing me, "that people outgrow and blush to look back on."

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Do you blush to look back on it?"

Mother rose and made a sweeping gesture with her right arm.

"I wash my hands of you!" she said. "You are impertanent and indelacate. At your age I was an inocent child, not troubleing with things that did not concern me. As for Love, I had never heard of it until I came out."

"Life must have burst on you like an explosion," I observed. "I suppose you thought that babies----"

"Silense!" mother shreiked. And seeing that she persisted in ignoring the real things of Life while in my presence, I went out, cluching the precious paper to my Heart.

JANUARY 15TH. I am alone in my BOUDOIR (which is realy the old schoolroom, and used now for a sowing room).

My very soul is sick, oh Dairy. How can I face the truth? How write it out for my eyes to see? But I must. For SOMETHING MUST BE DONE. The play is failing.

The way I discovered it was this. Yesterday, being short of money, I sold my amethist pin to Jane, one of the housemaids, for two dollars, throwing in a lace coller when she seemed doubtful, as I had a special purpose for useing funds. Had father been at home I could have touched him, but mother is diferent.

I then went out to buy a frame for his picture, which I had repaired by drawing in the other eye, although licking the Fire and passionate look of the originle. At the shop I was compeled to show it, to buy a frame to fit. The clerk was almost overpowered.

"Do you know him?" she asked, in a low and throbing tone.

"Not intimitely," I replied.

"Don't you love the Play?" she said. "I'm crazy about it. I've been back three times. Parts of it I know off by heart. He's very handsome. That picture don't do him justise."

I gave her a searching glanse. Was it posible that, without any acquaintance with him whatever, she had fallen in love with him? It was indeed. She showed it in every line of her silly face.

I drew myself up hautily. "I should think it would be very expencive, going so often," I said, in a cool tone.

"Not so very. You see, the play is a failure, and they give us girls tickets to dress the house. Fill it up, you know. Half the girls in the store are crazy about Mr. Egleston."

My world shuddered about me. What--fail! That beautiful play, ending "My darling, my woman"? It could not be. Fate would not be cruel. Was there no apreciation of the best in Art? Was it indeed true, as Miss Everett has complained, although not in these exact words, that the Theater was only supported now by chorus girls' legs, dancing about in uter ABANDON?

With an expression of despair on my features, I left the store, carrying the Frame under my arm.

One thing is certain. I must see the play again, and judge it with a criticle eye. IF IT IS WORTH SAVING, IT MUST BE SAVED.

JANUARY 16TH. Is it only a day since I saw you, Dear Dairy? Can so much have happened in the single lapse of a few hours? I look in my mirror, and I look much as before, only with perhaps a touch of paller. Who would not be pale?

I have seen HIM again, and there is no longer any doubt in my heart. Page Beresford is atractive, and if it were not for circumstances as they are I would not anser for the consequences. But things ARE as they are. There is no changing that. And I have reid my own heart.

I am not fickel. On the contrary, I am true as steal.

I have put his Picture under my mattress, and have given Jane my gold cuff pins to say nothing when she makes my bed. And now, with the house full of People downstairs acting in a flippent and noisy maner, I shall record how it all happened.

My finantial condition was not improved this morning, father having not returned. But I knew that I must see the Play, as mentioned above, even if it became necesary to borow from Hannah. At last, seeing no other way, I tried this, but failed.

"What for?" she said, in a suspicous way.

"I need it terrably, Hannah," I said.

"You'd ought to get it from your mother, then, Miss Barbara. The last time I gave you some you paid it back in postage stamps, and I haven't written a letter since. They're all stuck together now, and a totle loss."

"Very well," I said, fridgidly. "But the next time you break anything----"

"How much do you want?" she asked.

I took a quick look at her, and I saw at once that she had desided to lend it to me and then run and tell mother, beginning, "I think you'd ought to know, Mrs. Archibald----"

"Nothing doing, Hannah," I said, in a most dignafied manner. "But I think you are an old Clam, and I don't mind saying so."

I was now thrown on my own resourses, and very bitter. I seemed to have no Friends, at a time when I needed them most, when I was, as one may say, "standing with reluctent feet, where the brook and river meet."

Tonight I am no longer sick of Life, as I was then. My throws of anguish have departed. But I was then uterly reckless, and even considered running away and going on the stage myself.

I have long desired a Career for mvself, anyhow. I have a good mind, and learn easily, and I am not a Paracite. The idea of being such has always been repugnent to me, while the idea of a few dollars at a time doaled out to one of independant mind is galling. And how is one to remember what one has done with one's Allowence, when it is mostly eaten up by Small Lones, Carfare, Stamps, Church Collection, Rose Water and Glicerine, and other Mild Cosmetics, and the aditional Food necesary when one is still growing?

To resume, Dear Dairy; having uterly failed with Hannah, and having shortly after met Sis on the stairs, I said to her, in a sisterly tone, intimite rather than fond:

"I darsay you can lend me five dollars for a day or so."

"I darsay I can. But I won't," was her cruel reply.

"Oh, very well," I said breifly. But I could not refrain from making a grimase at her back, and she saw me in a mirror.

"When I think," she said heartlessly, "that that wreched school may be closed for weeks, I could scream."

"Well, scream!" I replied. "You'll scream harder if I've brought the meazles home on me. And if you're laid up, you can say good-bye to the Dishonorable. You've got him tide, maybe," I remarked, "but not thrown as yet."

(A remark I had learned from one of the girls, Trudie Mills, who comes from Montana.)

I was therfore compeled to dispose of my silver napkin ring from school. Jane was bought up, she said, and I sold it to the cook for fifty cents and half a minse pie although baked with our own materials.

All my Fate, therfore, hung on a paltrey fifty cents.

I was torn with anxiety. Was it enough? Could I, for fifty cents, steel away from the sordid cares of life, and lose myself in obliviousness, gazing only it his dear Face, listening to his dear and softly modulited Voice, and wondering if, as his eyes swept the audiance, they might perchance light on me and brighten with a momentary gleam in their unfathomable Depths? Only this and nothing more, was my expectation.

How diferent was the reality!

Having ascertained that there was a matinee, I departed at an early hour after luncheon, wearing my blue velvet with my fox furs. White gloves and white topped shoes completed my outfit, and, my own CHAPEAU showing the effect of a rainstorm on the way home from church while away at school, I took a chance on one of Sis's, a perfectly madening one of rose-colored velvet. As the pink made me look pale, I added a touch of rouge.

I looked fully out, and indeed almost Second Season. I have a way of assuming a serious and Mature manner, so that I am frequently taken for older than I realy am. Then, taking a few roses left from the decorations, and thrusting them carelessly into the belt of my coat, I went out the back door, as Sis was getting ready for some girls to Bridge, in the front of the house.

Had I felt any greif at decieving my Familey, the bridge party would have knocked them. For, as usual, I had not been asked, although playing a good game myself, and having on more than one occasion won most of the money in the Upper House at school.

I was early at the theater. No one was there, and women were going around taking covers off the seats. My fifty cents gave me a good seat, from which I opined, alas, that the shop girl had been right and busness was rotten. But at last, after hours of waiting, the faint tuning of musicle instruments was heard.

From that time I lived in a daze. I have never before felt so strange. I have known and respected the Other Sex, and indeed once or twise been kissed by it. But I had remained Cold. My Pulses had never flutered. I was always conserned only with the fear that others had overseen and would perhaps tell. But now--I did not care who would see, if only Adrian would put his arms about me. Divine shamlessness! Brave Rapture! For if one who he could not possably love, being so close to her in her make-up, if one who was indeed employed to be made Love to, could submit in public to his embrases, why should not I, who would have died for him?

These were my thoughts as the Play went on. The hours flew on joyous feet. When Adrian came to the footlights and looking aparently square at me, declaimed: "The World owes me a living. I will have it," I almost swooned. His clothes were worn. He looked hungry and ghaunt. But how true that

"Rags are royal raimant, when worn for virtue's sake."

(I shall stop here and go down to the Pantrey. I could eat no dinner, being filled with emotion. But I must keep strong if I am to help Adrian in his Trouble. The minse pie was excelent, but after all pastrey does not take the place of solid food.)

LATER: I shall now go on with my recitle. As the theater was almost emty, at the end of Act One I put on the pink hat and left it on as though absent-minded. There was no one behind me. And, although during Act One I had thought that he perhaps felt my presense, he had not once looked directly at me.

But the hat captured his erant gaze, as one may say. And, after capture, it remained on my face, so much so that I flushed and a woman sitting near with a very plain girl in a Skunk Coller, observed:

"Realy, it is outragous."

Now came a moment which I thrill even to recolect. For Adrian plucked a pink rose from a vase--he was in the Milionaire' s house, and was starving in the midst of luxury--and held it to his lips.

The rose, not the house, of course. Looking over it, he smiled down at me.

LATER: It is midnight. I cannot sleep. Perchanse he to is lieing awake. I am sitting at the window in my ROBE DE NUIT. Below, mother and Sis have just come in, and Smith has slamed the door of the car and gone back to the GARAGE. How puney is the life my Familey leads! Nothing but eating and playing, with no Higher Thoughts.

A man has just gone by. For a moment I thought I recognised the footstep. But no, it was but the night watchman.

JANUARY 17TH. Father still away. No money, as mother absolutely refuses on account of Maidie Mackenzie's gown, which she had to send away to be repaired.

JANUARY 18TH. Father still away. The Hon. sent Sis a huge bunch of orkids today. She refused me even one. She is always tight with flowers and candy.

JANUARY 19TH. The paper says that Adrian's Play is going to close the end of next week. No busness. How can I endure to know that he is sufering, and that I cannot help, even to the extent of buying one ticket? Matinee today, and no money. Father still away.

I have tried to do a kind Deed today, feeling that perhaps it would soften mother's heart and she would advance my Allowence. I offered to manacure her nails for her, but she refused, saying that as Hannah had done it for many years, she guessed she could manage now.

JANUARY 20TH. Today I did a desparate thing, dear Dairy.

"The desparatest is the wisest course." Butler.

It is Sunday. I went to Church, and thought things over. What a wonderfull thing it would be if I could save the play! Why should I feel that my Sex is a handycap?

The recter preached on "The Opportunaties of Women." The Sermon gave me courage to go on. When he said, "Women today step in where men are afraid to tred, and bring success out of failure," I felt that it was meant for me.

Had no money for the Plate, and mother atempted to smugle a half dollar to me. I refused, however, as if I cannot give my own money to the Heathen, I will give none. Mother turned pale, and the man with the plate gave me a black look. What can he know of my reasons?

Beresford lunched with us, and as I discouraged him entirely, he was very atentive to Sis. Mother is planing a big Wedding, and I found Sis in the store room yesterday looking up mother's wedding veil.

No old stuff for me.

I guess Beresford is trying to forget that he kissed my hand the other night, for he called me "Little Miss Barbara" today, meaning little in the sense of young. I gave him a stern glanse.

"I am not any littler than the other night," I observed.

"That was merely an afectionate diminutive," he said, looking uncomfortable.

"If you don't mind," I said coldly, "you might do as you have hertofore--reserve your afectionate advances until we are alone."

"Barbara!" mother said. And began quickly to talk about a Lady Somthing or other we'd met on a train in Switzerland. Because--they can talk until they are black in the face, dear Dairy, but it is true we do not know any of the British Nobilaty, except the aforementioned and the man who comes once a year with flavering extracts, who says he is the third son of a Barronet.

Every one being out this afternoon, I suddenly had an inspiration, and sent for Carter Brooks. I then put my hair up and put on my blue silk, because while I do not beleive in Woman using her femanine charm when talking busness, I do beleive that she should look her best under any and all circumstances.

He was rather surprized not to find Sis in, as I had used her name in telephoning.

"I did it," I explained, "because I knew that you felt no interest in me, and I had to see you."

He looked at me, and said:

"I'm rather flabergasted, Bab. I--what ought I to say, anyhow?"

He came very close, dear Dairy, and sudenly I saw in his eyes the horible truth. He thought me in Love with him, and sending for him while the Familey was out.

Words cannot paint my agony of Soul. I stepped back, but he siezed my hand, in a caresing gesture.

"Bab!" he said. "Dear little Bab!"

Had my afections not been otherwise engaged, I should have thriled at his accents. But, although handsome and of good familey, although poor, I could not see it that way.

So I drew my hand away, and retreated behind a sofa.

"We must have an understanding, Carter" I Said. "I have sent for you, but not for the reason you seem to think. I am in desparate Trouble."

He looked dumfounded.

"Trouble!" he said. "You! Why, little Bab"

"If you don't mind," I put in, rather petishly, because of not being little, "I wish you would treat me like almost a DEBUTANTE, if not entirely. I am not a child in arms."

"You are sweet enough to be, if the arms might be mine."

I have puzled over this, since, dear Dairy. Because there must be some reason why men fall in Love with me. I am not ugly, but I am not beautifull, my noze being too short. And as for clothes, I get none except Leila's old things. But Jane Raleigh says there are women like that. She has a couzin who has had four Husbands and is beginning on a fifth, although not pretty and very slovenly, but with a mass of red hair.

Are all men to be my Lovers?

"Carter," I said earnestly, "I must tell you now that I do not care for you--in that way."

"What made you send for me, then?"

"Good gracious!" I exclaimed, losing my temper somwhat. "I can send for the ice man without his thinking I'm crazy about him, can't I?"

"Thanks."

"The truth is," I said, sitting down and motioning him to a seat in my maturest manner, "I--I want some money. There are many things, but the Money comes first."

He just sat and looked at me with his mouth open.

"Well," he said at last, "of course--I suppose you know you've come to a Bank that's gone into the hands of a reciever. But aside from that, Bab, it's a pretty mean trick to send for me and let me think--well, no matter about that. How much do you want?"

"I can pay it back as soon as father comes home," I said, to releive his mind. It is against my principals to borow money, especialy from one who has little or none. But since I was doing it, I felt I might as well ask for a lot.

"Could you let me have ten dollars?" I said, in a faint tone.

He drew a long breath.

"Well, I guess yes," he observed. "I thought you were going to touch me for a hundred, anyhow. I--I suppose you wouldn't give me a kiss and call it square."

I considered. Because after all, a kiss is not much, and ten dollars is a good deal. But at last my better nature won out.

"Certainly not," I said coldly. "And if there is a String to it I do not want it."

So he apologised, and came and sat beside me, without being a nusance, and asked me what my other troubles were.

"Carter" I said, in a grave voice, "I know that you beleive me young and incapable of Afection. But you are wrong. I am of a most loving disposition."

"Now see here, Bab," he said. "Be fair. If I am not to hold your hand, or--or be what you call a nusance, don't talk like this. I am but human," he said, "and there is somthing about you lately that--well, go on with your story. Only, as I say, don't try me to far."

"It's like this," I explained. "Girls think they are cold and distant, and indeed, frequently are."

"Frequently!"

"Until they meet the Right One. Then they learn that their hearts are, as you say, but human."

"Bab," he said, sudenly turning and facing me, "an awfull thought has come to me. You are in Love--and not with me!"

"I am in Love, and not with you," I said in tradgic tones.

I had not thought he would feel it deeply--because of having been interested in Leila since they went out in their Perambulaters together. But I could see it was a shock to him. He got up and stood looking in the fire, and his shoulders shook with greif.

"So I have lost you," he said in a smothered voice. And then--"Who is the sneaking schoundrel?"

I forgave him this, because of his being upset, and in a rapt attatude I told him the whole story. He listened, as one in a daze.

"But I gather," he said, when at last the recitle was over, "that you have never met the--met him."

"Not in the ordinery use of the word," I remarked. "But then it is not an ordinery situation. We have met and we have not. Our eyes have spoken, if not our vocal chords." Seeing his eyes on me I added, "if you do not beleive that Soul can cry unto Soul, Carter, I shall go no further."

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "There is more, is there? I trust it is not painfull, because I have stood as much as I can now without breaking down."

"Nothing of which I am ashamed," I said, rising to my full height. "I have come to you for help, Carter. THAT PLAY MUST NOT FAIL."

We faced each other over those vitle words--faced, and found no solution.

"Is it a good Play?" he asked, at last.

"It is a beautiful Play. Oh, Carter, when at the end he takes his Sweetheart in his arms--the leading lady, and not at all atractive. Jane Raleigh says that the star generaly HATES his leading lady--there is not a dry eye in the house."

"Must be a jolly little thing. Well, of course I'm no theatricle manager, but if it's any good there's only one way to save it. Advertize. I didn't know the piece was in town, which shows that the publicaty has been rotten."

He began to walk the floor. I don't think I have mentioned it, but that is Carter's busness. Not walking the floor. Advertizing. Father says he is quite good, although only beginning.

"Tell me about it," he said.

So I told him that Adrian was a mill worker, and the villain makes him lose his position, by means of forjery. And Adrian goes to jail, and comes out, and no one will give him work. So he prepares to blow up a Milionaire's house, and his sweetheart is in it. He has been to the Milionaire for work and been refused and thrown out, saying, just before the butler and three footmen push him through a window, in dramatic tones, "The world owes me a living and I will have it."

"Socialism!" said Carter. "Hard stuff to handle for the two dollar seats. The world owes him a living. Humph! Still, that's a good line to work on. Look here, Bab, give me a little time on this, eh what? I may be able to think of a trick or two. But mind, not a word to any one."

He started out, but he came back.

"Look here," he said. "Where do we come in on this anyhow? Suppose I do think of somthing--what then? How are we to know that your beloved and his manager will thank us for buting in, or do what we sugest?"

Again I drew myself to my full heighth.

"I am a person of iron will when my mind is made up," I said. "You think of somthing, Carter, and I'll see that it is done."

He gazed at me in a rapt manner.

"Dammed if I don't beleive you," he said.

It is now late at night. Beresford has gone. The house is still. I take the dear Picture out from under my mattress and look at it.

Oh Adrien, my Thespian, my Love. _

Read next: Chapter 3. Her Diary (cont.)

Read previous: Chapter 2. Theme: The Celebrity (cont.)

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