CHAPTER II. THEME: THE CELEBRITY

We have been requested to write, during this vacation, a true and

veracious account of a meeting with any celebrity we happened to meet

during the summer. If no celebrity, any interesting character would do,

excepting one's own family.

But as one's own family is neither celebrated nor interesting, there is

no temptation to write about it.

As I met Mr. Reginald Beecher this summer, I have chosen him as my

subject.

Brief history of the Subject: He was born in 1890 at Woodbury, N. J.

Attended public high schools, and in 1910 graduated from Princeton

University.

Following year produced first Play in New York, called Her Soul.

Followed this by the Soul Mate, and this by The Divorce.

Description of Subject. Mr. Beecher is tall and slender, and wears a

very small dark Mustache. Although but twenty-six years of age, his hair

on close inspection reveals here and there a silver thread. His teeth

are good, and his eyes amber, with small flecks of brown in them. He has

been vaccinated twice.

It has always been one of my chief ambitions to meet a celebrity. On one

or two occasions we have had them at school, but they never sit at the

Junior's table. Also, they are seldom connected with either the Drama

or The Movies (a slang term but apparently taking a place in our

literature).

It was my intention, on being given this subject for my midsummer theme,

to seek out Mrs. Bainbridge, a lady author who has a cottage across the

bay from ours, and to ask the privilege of sitting at her feet for a few

hours, basking in the sunshine of her presence, and learning from her

own lips her favorite Flower, her favorite Poem and the favorite child

of her brain.

Of all those arts in which the wise excel,

Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.

Duke of Buckingham

I had meant to write my theme on her, but I learned in time that she

was forty years of age. Her work is therefore done. She has passed her

active years, and I consider that it is not the past of American Letters

which is at stake, but the future. Besides, I was more interested in the

drama than in literature.

Possibly it is owing to the fact that the girls think I resemble Julia

Marlowe, that from my earliest years my mind has been turned toward the

stage. I am very determined and fixed in my ways, and with me to decide

to do a thing is to decide to do it. I am not of a romantic nature,

however, and as I learned of the dangers of the theater, I drew back.

Even a strong nature, such as mine is, on occasions, can be influenced.

I therefore decided to change my plans, and to write plays instead of

acting in them.

At first I meant to write comedies, but as I realized the gravity

of life, and its bitterness and disappointments, I turned naturally to

tragedy. Surely, as dear Shakespeare says:

The world is a stage

Where every man must play a part,

And mine a sad one.

This explains my sincere interest in Mr. Beecher. His works were all

realistic and sad. I remember that I saw the first one three years ago,

when a mere child, and became violently ill from crying and had to be

taken home.

The school will recall that last year I wrote a play, patterned on The

Divorce, and that only a certain narrowness of view on the part of the

faculty prevented it being the class play. If I may be permitted to

express an opinion, we of the class of 1917 are not children, and should

not be treated as such.

Encouraged by the applause of my class-mates, and feeling that I was of

a more serious turn of mind than most of them, who seem to think of

pleasure only, I decided to write a play during the summer. I would

thus be improving my vacation hours, and, I considered, keeping out of

mischief. It was pure idleness which had caused my trouble during the

last Christmas holidays. How true it is that the devil finds work for

idle hands!

With a play and this theme I believed that the devil would give me up as

a total loss, and go elsewhere.

How little we can read the future!

I now proceed to an account of my meeting and acquaintance with Mr.

Beecher. It is my intention to conceal nothing. I can only comfort

myself with the thought that my motives were innocent, and that I was

obeying orders and securing material for a theme. I consider that the

attitude of my family is wrong and cruel, and that my sister Leila,

being only 20 months older, although out in society, has no need to

write me the sort of letters she has been writing. Twenty months is

twenty months, and not two years, although she seems to think it is.

I returned home full of happy plans for my vacation. When I look back it

seems strange that the gay and innocent young girl of the train can have

been! So much that is tragic has since happened. If I had not had a

cinder in my eye things would have been different. But why repine? Fate

frequently hangs thus on a single hair--an eye-lash, as one may say.

Father met me at the train. I had got the aforementioned cinder in my

eye, and a very nice young man had taken it out for me. I still cannot

see what harm there was in our chatting together after that, especially as

we said nothing to object to. But father looked very disagreeable about

it, and the young man went away in a hurry. But it started us off wrong,

although I got him--father--to promise not to tell mother.

"I do wish you would be more careful, Bab," he said with a sort of sigh.

"Careful!" I said. "Then it's not doing things, but being found out,

that matters!"

"Careful in your conduct, Bab."

"He was a beautiful young man, father," I observed, slipping my arm

through his.

"Barbara, Barbara! Your poor mother----"

"Now look here, father" I said. "If it was mother who was interested in

him it might be troublesome. But it is only me. And I warn you, here and

now, that I expect to be thrilled at the sight of a nice young man right

along. It goes up my back and out the roots of my hair."

Well, my father is a real person, so he told me to talk sense, and gave

me twenty dollars, and agreed to say nothing about the young man to

mother, if I would root for Canada against the Adirondacks for the

summer, because of the fishing.

Mother was waiting in the hall for me, but she held me off with both

hands.

"Not until you have bathed and changed your clothing, Barbara," she

said. "I have never had it."

She meant the whooping cough. The school will recall the epidemic which

ravaged us last June, and changed us from a peaceful institution to what

sounded like a dog show.

Well, I got the same old room, not much fixed up, but they had put up

different curtains anyhow, thank goodness. I had been hinting all spring

for new furniture, but my family does not take a hint unless it is

chloroformed first, and I found the same old stuff there.

They believe in waiting until a girl makes her debut before giving her

anything but the necessities of life.

Sis was off for a week-end, but Hannah was there, and I kissed her. Not

that I'm so fond of her, but I had to kiss somebody.

"Well, Miss Barbara!" she said. "How you've grown!"

That made me rather sore, because I am not a child any longer, but they

all talk to me as if I were but six years old, and small for my age.

"I've stopped growing, Hannah," I said, with dignity. "At least, almost.

But I see I still draw the nursery."

Hannah was opening my suitcase, and she looked up and said: "I tried to

get you the blue room, Miss Bab. But Miss Leila said she needed it for

house parties."

"Never mind," I said. "I don't care anything about furniture. I have

other things to think about, Hannah; I want the school room desk up

here."

"Desk!" she said, with her jaw drooping.

"I am writing now," I said. "I need a lot of ink, and paper, and a good

lamp. Let them keep the blue room, Hannah, for their selfish purposes. I

shall be happy in my work. I need nothing more."

"Writing!" said Hannah. "Is it a book you're writing?"

"A play."

"Listen to the child! A play!"

I sat on the edge of the bed.

"Listen, Hannah," I said. "It is not what is outside of us that matters.

It is what is inside. It is what we are, not what we eat, or look like,

or wear. I have given up everything, Hannah, to my career."

"You're young yet," said Hannah. "You used to be fond enough of the

boys."

Hannah has been with us for years, so she gets rather talky at times,

and has to be sat upon.

"I care nothing whatever for the Other Sex," I replied haughtily.

She was opening my suitcase at the time, and I was surveying the chamber

which was to be the seen of my Literary Life, at least for some time.

"Now and then," I said to Hannah, "I shall read you parts of it. Only

you mustn't run and tell mother."

"Why not?" said she, peering into the Suitcase.

"Because I intend to deal with Life," I said. "I shall deal with real

Things, and not the way we think them. I am young, but I have thought a

great deal. I shall mince nothing."

"Look here, Miss Barbara," Hannah said, all at once, "what are you doing

with this whiskey flask? And these socks? And--you come right here, and

tell me where you got the things in this suitcase." I stocked over to

the bed, and my blood froze in my veins. IT WAS NOT MINE.

Words cannot fully express how I felt. While fully convinced that there

had been a mistake, I knew not when or how. Hannah was staring at me

with cold and accusing eyes.

"You're a very young lady, Miss Barbara," she said, with her eyes full

of Suspicion, "to be carrying a flask about with you." I was as puzzled

as she was, but I remained calm and to all appearances Spartan.

"I am young in years," I remarked. "But I have seen Life, Hannah."

Now I meant nothing by this at the time. But it was getting on my nerves

to be put in the infant class all the time. The Christmas before they had

done it, and I had had my revenge. Although it had hurt me more than it

hurt them, and if I gave them a fright I gave myself a worse one. As I

said at that time:

Oh, what a tangled web we weave,

When first we practice to deceive.

Sir Walter Scott.

Hannah gave me a horrified glare, and dipped into the suitcase again.

She brought up a tin box of cigarettes, and I thought she was going to

have delirium tremens at once.

Well, at first I thought the girls at school had played a trick on me,

and a low down mean trick at that. There are always those who think it

is funny to do that sort of thing, but they are the first to squeal when

anything is done to them. Once I put a small garter snake in a girl's

muff, and it went up her sleeve, which is nothing to some of the things

she had done to me. And you would have thought the school was on fire.

Anyhow, I said to myself that some Smarty was trying to get me into

trouble, and Hannah would run to the family, and they'd never believe

me. All at once I saw all my cherished plans for the summer gone, and

me in the country somewhere with Mademoiselle, and walking through the

pasture with a botany in one hand and a folding cup in the other, in

case we found a spring a cow had not stepped in. Mademoiselle was

once my Governess, but has retired to private life, except in cases of

emergency.

I am naturally very quick in mind. The Archibalds are all like that, and

when once we decide on a course we stick to it through thick and

thin. But we do not lie. It is ridiculous for Hannah to say I said the

cigarettes were mine. All I said was:

"I suppose you are going to tell the family. You'd better run, or

you'll burst."

"Oh, Miss Barbara, Miss Barbara!" she said. "And you so young to be so

wild!"

This was unjust, and I am one to resent injustice. I had returned home

with my mind fixed on serious things, and now I was being told I was

wild.

"If I tell your mother she'll have a fit," Hannah said, evidently drawn

hither and thither by emotion. "Now see here, Miss Bab, you've just

come home, and there was trouble at your last vacation that I'm like to

remember to my dying day. You tell me how those things got there, like

a good girl, and I'll say nothing about them."

I am naturally sweet in disposition, but to call me a good girl and

remind me of last Christmas holidays was too much. My natural firmness came

to the front.

"Certainly NOT," I said.

"You needn't stick your lip out at me, Miss Bab, that was only giving

you a chance, and forgetting my duty to help you, not to mention

probably losing my place when the family finds out."

"Finds out what?"

"What you've been up to, the stage, and writing plays, and now liquor

and tobacco!"

Now I may be at fault in the narrative that follows. But I ask the school

if this was fair treatment. I had returned to my home full of high

ideals, only to see them crushed beneath the heal of domestic tyranny.

Necessity is the argument of tyrants;

it is the creed of slaves.

William Pitt.

How true are these immortal words.

It was with a firm countenance but a sinking heart that I saw Hannah

leave the room. I had come home inspired with lofty ambition, and it

had ended thus. Heart-broken, I wandered to the bedside, and let my eyes

fall on the suitcase, the container of all my woe.

Well, I was surprised, all right. It was not and never had been mine.

Instead of my blue serge sailor suit and my 'robe de nuit' and kimono

etc., it contained a checked gentleman's suit, a mussed shirt and a cap.

At first I was merely astonished. Then a sense of loss overpowered me.

I suffered. I was prostrated with grief. Not that I cared a rap for

the clothes I'd lost, being most of them to small and patched here and

there. But I had lost the plot of my play. My career was gone.

I was undone.

It may be asked what has this recital to do with the account of meeting

a celebrity. I reply that it has a great deal to do with it. A bare

recital of a meeting may be news, but it is not art.

A theme consists of Introduction, Body and Conclusion.

This is still the Introduction.

When I was at last revived enough to think I knew what had happened. The

young man who took the cinder out of my eye had come to sit beside

me, which I consider was merely kindness on his part and nothing like

flirting, and he had brought his suitcase over, and they had got mixed

up. But I knew the family would call it flirting, and not listen to a

word I said.

A madness seized me. Now that everything is over, I realize that it was

madness. But "there is a divinity that shapes our ends etc." It was to

be. It was Karma, or Kismet, or whatever the word is. It was written in

the Book of Fate that I was to go ahead, and wreck my life, and generally

ruin everything.

I locked the door behind Hannah, and stood with tragic feet, "where the

brook and river meet." What was I to do? How hide this evidence of

my (presumed) duplicity? I was innocent, but I looked guilty. This, as

everyone knows, is worse than guilt.

I unpacked the suitcase as fast as I could, therefore, and being just

about distracted, I bundled the things up and put them all together in

the toy closet, where all Sis's dolls and mine are, mine being mostly

pretty badly gone, as I was always hard on dolls.

How far removed were those innocent years when I played with dolls!

Well, I knew Hannah pretty well, and therefore was not surprised when,

having hidden the trousers under a doll buggy, I heard mother's voice at

the door.

"Let me in, Barbara," she said.

I closed the closet door, and said: "What is it, mother?"

"Let me in."

So I let her in, and pretended I expected her to kiss me, which she

had not yet, on account of the whooping cough. But she seemed to have

forgotten that. Also the kiss.

"Barbara," she said, in the meanest voice, "how long have you been

smoking?"

Now I must pause to explain this. Had mother approached me in a sweet

and maternal manner, I would have been softened, and would have told the

whole story. But she did not. She was, as you might say, steaming with

rage. And seeing that I was misunderstood, I hardened. I can be as hard

as adamant when necessary.

"What do you mean, mother?"

"Don't answer one question with another."

"How can I answer when I don't understand you?"

She simply twitched with fury.

"You--a mere Child!" she raved. "And I can hardly bring myself to

mention it--the idea of your owning a flask, and bringing it into this

house--it is--it is----"

Well, I was growing cold and more haughty every moment, so I said: "I

don't see why the mere mention of a flask upsets you so. It isn't

because you aren't used to one, especially when traveling. And since I

was a mere baby I have been accustomed to intoxicants."

"Barbara!" she interjected, in the most dreadful tone.

"I mean, in the family," I said. "I have seen wine on our table ever

since I can remember. I knew to put salt on a claret stain before I

could talk."

Well, you know how it is to see an enemy on the run, and although I

regret to refer to my dear mother as an enemy, still at that moment she

was such and no less. And she was beating it. It was the reference to

my youth that had aroused me, and I was like a wounded lion. Besides, I

knew well enough that if they refused to see that I was practically grown

up, if not entirely, I would get a lot of Sis's clothes, fixed up with

new ribbons. Faded old things! I'd had them for years.

Better to be considered a bad woman than an unformed child.

"However, mother," I finished, "if it is any comfort to you, I did not

buy that flask. And I am not a confirmed alcoholic. By no means."

"This settles it," she said, in a melancholy tone. "When I think of the

comfort Leila has been to me, and the anxiety you have caused, I wonder

where you get your--your DEVILTRY from. I am positively faint."

I was alarmed, for she did look queer, with her face all white around

the rouge. So I reached for the flask.

"I'll give you a swig of this," I said. "It will pull you around in no

time."

But she held me off fiercely.

"Never!" she said. "Never again. I shall empty the wine cellar. There

will be nothing to drink in this house from now on. I do not know what

we are coming to."

She walked into the bathroom, and I heard her emptying the flask down

the drain pipe. It was a very handsome flask, silver with gold stripes,

and all at once I knew the young man would want it back. So I said:

"Mother, please leave the flask here anyhow."

"Certainly not."

"It's not mine, mother."

"Whose is it?"

"It--a friend of mine loaned it to me."

"Who?"

"I can't tell you."

"You can't TELL me! Barbara, I am utterly bewildered. I sent you away a

simple child, and you return to me--what?"

Well, we had about an hour's fight over it, and we ended in a

compromise. I gave up the flask, and promised not to smoke and so forth,

and I was to have some new dresses and a silk sweater, and to be allowed

to stay up until ten o'clock, and to have a desk in my room for my work.

"Work!" mother said. "Career! What next? Why can't you be like Leila,

and settle down to having a good time?"

"Leila and I are different," I said loftily, for I resented her tone.

"Leila is a child of the moment. Life for her is one grand, sweet Song.

For me it is a serious matter. 'Life is real, life is earnest, and the

grave is not its goal,'" I quoted in impassioned tones.

(Because that is the way I feel. How can the grave be its goal? THERE

MUST BE SOMETHING BEYOND. I have thought it all out, and I believe in a

world beyond, but not in a hell. Hell, I believe, is the state of mind

one gets into in this world as a result of one's wicked acts or one's

wicked thoughts, and is in one's self.)

As I have said, the other side of the compromise was that I was not to

carry flasks with me, or drink any punch at parties if it had a stick

in it, and you can generally find out by the taste. For if it is what

Carter Brooks calls "loaded" it stings your tongue. Or if it tastes like

cider it's probably champagne. And I was not to smoke any cigarettes.

Mother was holding out on the sweater at that time, saying that Sis had

a perfectly good one from Miami, and why not wear that? So I put up a

strong protest about the cigarettes, although I have never smoked but

once as I think the school knows, and that only half through, owing to

getting dizzy. I said that Sis smoked now and then, because she thought

it looked smart; but that, if I was to have a career, I felt that the

soothing influence of tobacco would help a lot.

So I got the new sweater, and everything looked smooth again, and mother

kissed me on the way out, and said she had not meant to be harsh, but

that my great uncle Putnam had been a notorious drunkard, and I looked

like him, although of a more refined type.

There was a dreadful row that night, however, when father came home. We

were all dressed for dinner, and waiting in the drawing room, and Leila

was complaining about me, as usual.

"She looks older than I do now, mother," she said. "If she goes to the

seashore with us I'll have her always tagging at my heals. I don't see

why I can't have my first summer in peace." Oh, yes, we were going to

the shore, after all. Sis wanted it, and everybody does what she wants,

regardless of what they prefer, even fishing.

"First summer!" I exclaimed. "One would think you were a teething baby!"

"I was speaking to mother, Barbara. Everyone knows that a debutante

only has one year nowadays, and if she doesn't go off in that year she's

swept away by the flood of new girls the next fall. We might as well

be frank. And while Barbara's not a beauty, as soon as the bones in her

neck get a little flesh on them she won't be hopeless, and she has a

flippant manner that men like."

"I intend to keep Barbara under my eyes this summer," mother said

firmly. "After last Christmas's happenings, and our discovery today, I

shall keep her with me. She need not, however, interfere with you,

Leila. Her hours are mostly different, and I will see that her friends

are the younger boys."

I said nothing, but I knew perfectly well she had in mind Eddie Perkins

and Willie Graham, and a lot of other little kids that hang around the

fruit punch at parties, and throw the peas from the croquettes at each

other when the footmen are not near, and pretend they are allowed to

smoke, but have sworn off for the summer.

I was naturally indignant at Sis's words, which were not filial, to my

mind, but I replied as sweetly as possible:

"I shall not be in your way, Leila. I ask nothing but food and shelter,

and that perhaps not for long."

"Why? Do you intend to die?" she demanded.

"I intend to work," I said. "It's more interesting than dieing, and will

be a novelty in this house."

Father came in just then, and he said:

"I'll not wait to dress, Clara. Hello, children. I'll just change my

collar while you ring for the cocktails."

Mother got up and faced him with majesty.

"We are not going to have, any" she said.

"Any what?" said father from the doorway.

"I have had some fruit juice prepared with a dash of bitters. It is

quite nice. And I'll ask you, James, not to explode before the servants.

I will explain later."

Father has a very nice disposition but I could see that mother's manner

got on his nerves, as it got on mine. Anyhow there was a terrific fuss,

with Sis playing the piano so that the servants would not hear, and in

the end father had a cocktail. Mother waited until he had had it, and

was quieter, and then she told him about me, and my having a flask in

my suitcase. Of course I could have explained, but if they persisted in

misunderstanding me, why not let them do so, and be miserable?

"It's a very strange thing, Bab," he said, looking at me, "that

everything in this house is quiet until you come home, and then we get

as lively as kittens in a frying pan. We'll have to marry you off pretty

soon, to save our piece of mind."

"James!" said my mother. "Remember last winter, please."

There was no claret or anything with dinner, and father ordered mineral

water, and criticized the food, and fussed about Sis's dressmaker's

bill. And the second man gave notice immediately after we left the

dining room. When mother reported that, as we were having coffee in the

drawing room, father said:

"Humph! Well, what can you expect? Those fellows have been getting the

best half of a bottle of claret every night since they've been here, and

now it's cut off. Damned if I wouldn't like to leave myself."

From that time on I knew that I was watched. It made little or no

difference to me. I had my work, and it filled my life. There were times

when my soul was so filled with joy that I could hardly bare it. I had

one act done in two days. I wrote out the love scenes in full, because I

wanted to be sure of what they would say to each other. How I thrilled

as each marvelous burst of fantasy flowed from my pen! But the dialogue

of less interesting parts I left for the actors to fill in themselves.

I consider this the best way, as it gives them a chance to be original,

and not to have to say the same thing over and over.

Jane Raleigh came over to see me the day after I came home, and I read

her some of the love scenes. She positively wept with excitement.

"Bab," she said, "if any man, no matter who, ever said those things to

me, I'd go straight into his arms. I couldn't help it. Whose going to

act in it?"

"I think I'll have Robert Edeson, or Richard Mansfield."

"Mansfield's dead," said Jane.

"Honestly?"

"Honest he is. Why don't you get some of these moving picture actors?

They never have a chance in the Movies, only acting and not talking."

Well, that sounded logical. And then I read her the place where the

cruel first husband comes back and finds her married again and happy,

and takes the children out to drown them, only he can't because they can

swim, and they pull him in instead. The curtain goes down on nothing but

a few bubbles rising to mark his watery grave.

Jane was crying.

"It is too touching for words, Bab!" she said. "It has broken my heart.

I can just close my eyes and see the theater dark, and the stage almost

dark, and just those bubbles coming up and breaking. Would you have to

have a tank?"

"I daresay," I replied dreamily. "Let the other people worry about that.

I can only give them the material, and hope that they have intelligence

enough to grasp it."

I think Sis must have told Carter Brooks something about the trouble I

was in, for he brought me a box of candy one afternoon, and winked at me

when mother was not looking.

"Don't open it here," he whispered.

So I was forced to control my impatience, though passionately fond of

candy. And when I got to my room later, the box was full of cigarettes.

I could have screamed. It just gave me one more thing to hide, as if a

man's suit and shirt and so on was not sufficient.

But Carter paid more attention to me than he ever had before, and at

a tea dance somebody had at the country club he took me to one side and

gave me a good talking to.

"You're being rather a bad child, aren't you?" he said.

"Certainly not."

"Well, not bad, but--er--naughty. Now see here, Bab, I'm fond of you,

and you're growing into a mighty pretty girl. But your whole social

life is at stake. For heaven's sake, at least until you're married, cut

out the cigarettes and booze."

That cut me to the heart, but what could I say?

Well, July came, and we had rented a house at Little Hampton and

everywhere one went one fell over an open trunk or a barrel containing

silver or linen.

Mother went around with her lips moving as if in prayer, but she was

really repeating lists, such as sowing basket, table candles, headache

tablets, black silk stockings and tennis rackets.

Sis got some lovely clothes, mostly imported, but they had a woman come

in and sew for me. Hannah and she used to interrupt my most precious

moments at my desk by running a tape measure around me, or pinning a

paper pattern to me. The sewing woman always had her mouth full of pins,

and once, owing to my remarking that I wished I had been illegitimate,

so I could go away and live my own life, she swallowed one. It caused a

grate deal of excitement, with Hannah blaming me and giving her vinegar

to swallow to soften the pin. Well, it turned out all right, for she

kept on living, but she pretended to have sharp pains all over her here

and there, and if the pin had been as lively as a tadpole and wriggled

from spot to spot, it could not have hurt in so many places.

Of course they blamed me, and I shut myself up more and more in my

sanctuary. There I lived with the creatures of my dreams, and forgot for

a while that I was only a Sub-Deb, and that Leila's last year's tennis

clothes were being fixed over for me.

But how true what dear Shakespeare says:=

`````dreams,

```Which are the children of an idle brain.

```Begot of nothing but vain fantasy.=

I loved my dreams, but alas, they were not enough. After a tortured

hour or two at my desk, living in myself the agonies of my characters,

suffering the pangs of the wife with two husbands and both living,

struggling in the water with the children, fruit of the first union,

dying with number two and blowing my last bubbles heavenward--after all

these emotions, I was done out.

Jane came in one day and found me prostrate on my couch, with a light of

suffering in my eyes.

"Dearest!" cried Jane, and gliding to my side, fell on her knees.

"Jane!"

"What is it? You are ill?"

I could hardly more than whisper. In a low tone I said:

"He is dead."

"Dearest!"

"Drowned!"

At first she thought I meant a member of my family. But when she

understood she looked serious.

"You are too intense, Bab," she said solemnly. "You suffer too much. You

are wearing yourself out."

"There is no other way," I replied in broken tones.

Jane went to the Mirror and looked at herself. Then she turned to me.

"Others don't do it."

"I must work out my own Salvation, Jane," I observed firmly. But she had

roused me from my apathy, and I went into Sis's room, returning with

a box of candy some one had sent her. "I must feel, Jane, or I cannot

write."

"Pooh! Loads of writers get fat on it. Why don't you try comedy? It pays

well."

"Oh--MONEY!" I said, in a disgusted tone.

"Your FORTE, of course, is love," she said. "Probably that's because

you've had so much experience." Owing to certain reasons it is generally

supposed that I have experienced the gentle passion. But not so, alas!

"Bab," Jane said, suddenly, "I have been your friend for a long time. I

have never betrayed you. You can trust me with your life. Why don't you

tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"Something has happened. I see it in your eyes. No girl who is happy

and has not a tragic story stays at home shut up at a messy desk when

everyone is out at the club playing tennis. Don't talk to me about a

career. A girl's career is a man and nothing else. And especially after

last winter, Bab. Is--is it the same one?"

Here I made my fatal error. I should have said at once that there was

no one, just as there had been no one last winter. But she looked so

intense, sitting there, and after all, why should I not have an amorous

experience? I am not ugly, and can dance well, although inclined to lead

because of dancing with other girls all winter at school. So I lay back

on my pillow and stared at the ceiling.

"No. It is not the same man."

"What is he like? Bab, I'm so excited I can't sit still."

"It--it hurts to talk about him," I observed faintly.

Now I intended to let it go at that, and should have, had not Jane kept

on asking questions. Because I had had a good lesson the winter before,

and did not intend to deceive again. And this I will say--I really told

Jane Raleigh nothing. She jumped to her own conclusions. And as for her

people saying she cannot chum with me any more, I will only say this: If

Jane Raleigh smokes she did not learn it from me.

Well, I had gone as far as I meant to. I was not really in love with

anyone, although I liked Carter Brooks, and would possibly have loved him

with all the depth of my nature if Sis had not kept an eye on me most of

the time. However----

Jane seemed to be expecting something, and I tried to think of some

way to satisfy her and not make any trouble. And then I thought of the

suitcase. So I locked the door and made her promise not to tell, and got

the whole thing out of the toy closet.

"Wha--what is it?" asked Jane.

I said nothing, but opened it all up. The flask was gone, but the

rest was there, and Carter's box too. Jane leaned down and lifted the

trousers and poked around somewhat. Then she straitened and said:

"You have run away and got married, Bab."

"Jane!"

She looked at me piercingly.

"Don't lie to me," she said accusingly. "Or else what are you doing with

a man's whole outfit, including his dirty collar? Bab, I just can't bare

it."

Well, I saw that I had gone to far, and was about to tell Jane the truth

when I heard the sewing woman in the hall. I had all I could do to get

the things put away, and with Jane looking like death I had to stand

there and be fitted for one of Sis's chiffon frocks, with the low neck

filled in with net.

"You must remember, Miss Bab," said the human pin cushion, "that you are

still a very young girl, and not out yet."

Jane got up off the bed suddenly.

"I--I guess I'll go, Bab," she said. "I don't feel very well."

As she went out she stopped in the doorway and crossed her heart,

meaning that she would die before she would tell anything. But I was

not comfortable. It is not a pleasant thought that your best friend

considers you married and gone beyond recall, when in truth you are not,

or even thinking about it, except in idle moments.

The seen now changes. Life is nothing but such changes. No sooner do

we alight on one branch, and begin to sip the honey from it, but we

are taken up and carried elsewhere, perhaps to the mountains or to the

sea-shore, and there left to make new friends and find new methods of

enjoyment.

The flight--or journey--was in itself an anxious time. For on my

otherwise clear conscience rested the weight of that strange suitcase.

Fortunately Hannah was so busy that I was left to pack my belongings

myself, and thus for a time my guilty secret was safe. I put my things in

on top of the masculine articles, not daring to leave any of them in the

closet, owing to house-cleaning, which is always done before our return

in the fall.

On the train I had a very unpleasant experience, due to Sis opening my

suitcase to look for a magazine, and drawing out a soiled gentleman's

collar. She gave me a very piercing glance, but said nothing and at the

next opportunity I threw it out of a window, concealed in a newspaper.

We now approach the catastrophe. My book on play writing divides plays

into Introduction, Development, Crisis, Denouement and Catastrophe. And

so one may divide life. In my case the cinder proved the introduction,

as there was none other. I consider that the suitcase was the

development, my showing it to Jane Raleigh was the crisis, and the

denouement or catastrophe occurred later on.

Let us then proceed to the catastrophe.

Jane Raleigh came to see me off at the train. Her family was coming the

next day. And instead of flowers, she put a small bundle into my hands.

"Keep it hidden, Bab," she said, "and tear up the card."

I looked when I got a chance, and she had crocheted me a wash cloth,

with a pink edge. "For your linen chest," the card said, "and I'm doing

a bath towel to match."

I tore up the card, but I put the wash cloth with the other things I

was trying to hide, because it is bad luck to throw a gift away. But I

hoped, as I seemed to be getting more things to conceal all the time,

that she would make me a small bath towel, and not the sort as big as a

bed spread.

Father went with us to get us settled, and we had a long talk while

mother and Sis made out lists for dinners and so forth.

"Look here, Bab," he said, "something's wrong with you. I seem to have

lost my only boy, and have got instead a sort of tear-y young person I

don't recognize."

"I'm growing up, father" I said. I did not mean to rebuke him, but ye

gods! Was I the only one to see that I was no longer a child?

"Sometimes I think you are not very happy with us."

"Happy?" I pondered. "Well, after all, what is happiness?"

He took a spell of coughing then, and when it was over he put his arms

around me and was quite affectionate.

"What a queer little rat it is!" he said.

I only repeat this to show how even my father, with all his affection and

good qualities, did not understand and never would understand. My

heart was full of a longing to be understood. I wanted to tell him my

yearnings for better things, my aspirations to make my life a great and

glorious thing. AND HE DID NOT UNDERSTAND.

He gave me five dollars instead. Think of the tragedy of it!

As we went along, and he pulled my ear and finally went asleep with a

hand on my shoulder, the bareness of my life came to me. I shook with

sobs. And outside somewhere Sis and mother made dinner lists. Then and

there I made up my mind to work hard and achieve, to become great and

powerful, to write things that would ring the hearts of men--and women,

to, of course--and to come back to them some day, famous and beautiful,

and when they sued for my love, to be kind and haughty, but cold. I felt

that I would always be cold, although gracious.

I decided then to be a writer of plays first, and then later on to act

in them. I would thus be able to say what came into my head, as it was

my own play. Also to arrange the scenes so as to wear a variety of gowns,

including evening things. I spent the rest of the afternoon manicuring

my nails in our state room.

Well, we got there at last. It was a large house, but everything was

to thin about it. The school will understand this, the same being the

condition of the new freshman dormitory. The walls were to thin, and so

were the floors. The doors shivered in the wind, and palpitated if you

slammed them. Also you could hear every sound everywhere.

I looked around me in despair. Where, oh where, was I to find my

cherished solitude? Where?

On account of Hannah hating a new place, and considering the house an

insult to the servants, especially only one bathroom for the lot of them,

she let me unpack alone, and so far I was safe. But where was I to work?

Fate settled that for me however.

There is no armor against fate;

Death lays his icy hand on Kings.

J. Shirley; Dirge.

Previously, however, mother and I had had a talk. She sailed into my

room one evening, dressed for dinner, and found me in my ROBE DE NUIT,

curled up in the window seat admiring the view of the ocean.

"Well!" she said. "Is this the way you intend going to dinner?"

"I do not care for any dinner," I replied. Then, seeing she did not

understand, I said coldly. "How can I care for food, mother, when the

sea looks like a dying opal?"

"Dying pussycat!" mother said, in a very nasty way. "I don't know what

has come over you, Barbara. You used to be a normal child, and there was

some accounting for what you were going to do. But now! Take off that

nightgown, and I'll have Tanney hold off dinner for half an hour."

Tanney was the butler who had taken Patrick's place.

"If you insist," I said coldly. "But I shall not eat."

"Why not?"

"You wouldn't understand, mother."

"Oh, I wouldn't? Well, suppose I try," she said, and sat down. "I am

not very intelligent, but if you put it clearly I may grasp it. Perhaps

you'd better speak slowly, also."

So, sitting there in my room, while the sea throbbed in tireless beats

against the shore, while the light faded and the stars issued, one by

one, like a rash on the face of the sky, I told mother of my dreams. I

intended, I said, to write life as it really is, and not as supposed to

be.

"It may in places be, ugly" I said, "but truth is my banner. The truth

is never ugly, because it is real. It is, for instance, not ugly if a

man is in love with the wife of another, if it is real love, and not the

passing fancy of a moment."

Mother opened her mouth, but did not say anything.

"There was a time," I said, "when I longed for things that now have no

value whatever to me. I cared for clothes and even for the attentions of

the other sex. But that has passed away, mother. I have now no thought

but for my career."

I watched her face, and soon the dreadful understanding came to me.

She, too, did not understand. My literary aspirations were as nothing to

her!

Oh, the bitterness of that moment. My mother, who had cared for me as a

child, and obeyed my slightest wish, no longer understood me. And saddest

of all, there was no way out. None. Once, in my youth, I had believed

that I was not the child of my parents at all, but an adopted

one--perhaps of rank and kept out of my inheritance by those who had

selfish motives. But now I knew that I had no rank or inheritance, save

what I should carve out for myself. There was no way out. None.

Mother rose slowly, staring at me with perfectly fixed and glassy eyes.

"I am absolutely sure," she said, "that you are on the edge of something.

It may be typhoid, or it may be an elopement. But one thing is certain.

You are not normal."

With this she left me to my thoughts. But she did not neglect me. Sis

came up after dinner, and I saw mother's fine hand in that. Although not

hungry in the usual sense of the word, I had begun to grow rather empty,

and was nibbling out of a box of chocolates when Sis came.

She got very little out of me. To one with softness and tenderness I

would have told all, but Sis is not that sort. And at last she showed

her claws.

"Don't fool yourself for a minute," she said. "This literary pose has

not fooled anybody. Either you're doing it to appear interesting, or

you've done something you're scared about. Which is it?"

I refused to reply.

"Because if it's the first, and you're trying to look literary, you are

going about it wrong," she said. "Real Literary People don't go round

mooning and talking about the opal sea."

I saw mother had been talking, and I drew myself up.

"They look and act like other people," said Leila, going to the bureau

and spilling powder all over the place. "Look at Beecher."

"Beecher!" I cried, with a thrill that started inside my elbows. (I

have read this to one or two of the girls, and they say there is no such

thrill. But not all people act alike under the influence of emotion, and

mine is in my arms, as stated.)

"The playwright," Sis said. "He's staying next door. And if he does any

languishing it is not by himself."

There may be some who have for a long time had an ideal, but without

hoping ever to meet him, and then suddenly learning that he is nearby,

with indeed but a wall or two between, can be calm and cool. But I am

not like that. Although long suppression has taught me to dissemble at

times, where my heart is concerned I am powerless.

For it was at last my heart that was touched. I, who had scorned the

other sex and felt that I was born cold and always would be cold, that

day I discovered the truth. Reginald Beecher was my ideal. I had never

spoken to him, nor indeed seen him, except for his pictures. But the

very mention of his name brought a lump to my throat.

Feeling better immediately, I got Sis out of the room and coaxed Hannah

to bring me some dinner. While she was sneaking it out of the pantry I

was dressing, and soon, as a new being, I was out on the stone bench at

the foot of the lawn, gazing with rapt eyes at the sea.

But fate was against me. Eddie Perkins saw me there and came over. He

had but recently been put in long trousers, and those not his best

ones but only white flannels. He was never sure of his garters, and was

always looking to see if his socks were coming down. Well, he came over

just as I was sure I saw Reginald Beecher next door on the veranda, and

made himself a nuisance right away, trying all sorts of kid tricks, such

as snapping a rubber band at me, and pulling out hairpins.

But I felt that I must talk to someone. So I said:

"Eddie, if you had your choice of love or a career, which would it be?"

"Why not both," he said, hitching the rubber band onto one of his front

teeth and playing on it. "Neither ought to take up all a fellow's time.

Say, listen to this! Talk about a ukelele!"

"A woman can never have both."

He played a while, strumming with one finger until the hand slipped off

and stung him on the lip.

"Once," I said, "I dreamed of a career. But I believe love's the most

important."

Well, I shall pass lightly over what followed. Why is it that a girl

cannot speak of love without every member of the other sex present, no

matter how young, thinking it is he? And as for mother maintaining that

I kissed that wretched child, and they saw me from the drawing-room, it

is not true and never was true. It was but one more misunderstanding

which convinced the family that I was carrying on all manner of affairs.

Carter Brooks had arrived that day, and was staying at the Perkins'

cottage. I got rid of the Perkins' baby, as his nose was bleeding--but I

had not slapped him hard at all, and felt little or no compunction--when

I heard Carter coming down the walk. He had called to see Leila, but

she had gone to a beach dance and left him alone. He never paid any

attention to me when she was around, and I received him coolly.

"Hello!" he said.

"Well?" I replied.

"Is that the way you greet me, Bab?"

"It's the way I would greet most any left-over," I said. "I eat hash at

school, but I don't have to pretend to like it."

"I came to see YOU."

"How youthful of you!" I replied, in stinging tones.

He sat down on a bench and stared at me.

"What's got into you lately?" he said. "Just as you're getting to be

the prettiest girl around, and I'm strong for you, you--you turn into a

regular rattlesnake."

The kindness of his tone upset me considerably, to who so few kind words

had come recently. I am compelled to confess that I wept, although I had

not expected to, and indeed shed few tears, although bitter ones.

How could I possibly know that the chaste salute of Eddie Perkins and my

head on Carter Brooks' shoulder were both plainly visible against the

rising moon? But this was the case, especially from the house next door.

But I digress.

Suddenly Carter held me off and shook me somewhat.

"Sit up here and tell me about it," he said. "I'm getting more scared

every minute. You are such an impulsive little beast, and you turn the

fellows' heads so--look here, is Jane Raleigh lying, or did you run away

and get married to someone?"

I am aware that I should have said, then and there, No. But it seemed a

shame to spoil things just as they were getting interesting. So I said,

through my tears:

"Nobody understands me. Nobody. And I'm so lonely."

"And of course you haven't run away with anyone, have you?"

"Not--exactly."

"Bless you, Bab!" he said. And I might as well say that he kissed me,

because he did, although unexpectedly. Somebody just then moved a chair

on the porch next door and coughed rather loudly, so Carter drew a long

breath and got up.

"There's something about you lately, Bab, that I don't understand," he

said. "You--you're mysterious. That's the word. In a couple of years

you'll be the real thing."

"Come and see me then," I said in a demure manner. And he went away.

So I sat on my bench and looked at the sea and dreamed. It seemed to

me that centuries must have passed since I was a lighthearted girl,

running up and down that beach, paddling, and so forth, with no thought

of the future farther away than my next meal.

Once I lived to eat. Now I merely ate to live, and hardly that. The

fires of genius must be fed, but no more.

Sitting there, I suddenly made a discovery. The boat house was near me,

and I realized that upstairs, above the bath-houses, et cetera, there

must be a room or two. The very thought intrigued me (a new word for

interest, but coming into use, and sounding well).

Solitude--how I craved it for my work. And here it was, or would be when

I had got the place fixed up. True, the next door boat-house was close,

but a boat-house is a quiet place, generally, and I knew that nowhere,

aside from the desert, is there perfect silence.

I investigated at once, but found the place locked and the boatman gone.

However, there was a lattice, and I climbed up that and got in. I had a

fright there, as it seemed to be full of people, but I soon saw it was

only the family bathing suits hung up to dry. Aside from the odor of

drying things it was a fine study, and I decided to take a small table

there, and the various tools of my profession.

Climbing down, however, I had a surprise. For a man was just below, and

I nearly put my foot on his shoulder in the darkness.

"Hello!" he said. "So it's YOU."

I was quite speechless. It was Mr. Beecher himself, in his dinner

clothes and bareheaded.

Oh fluttering heart, be still. Oh pen, move steadily. OH TEMPORA O MORES!

"Let me down," I said. I was still hanging to the lattice.

"In a moment," he said. "I have an idea that the instant I do you'll

vanish. And I have something to tell you."

I could hardly believe my ears.

"You see," he went on, "I think you must move that bench."

"Bench?"

"You seem to be so very popular," he said. "And of course I'm only a

transient and don't matter. But some evening one of the admirers may be

on the Patten's porch, while another is with you on the bench. And--the

Moon rises beyond it."

I was silent with horror. So that was what he thought of me. Like all the

others, he, too, did not understand. He considered me a flirt, when my

only thoughts were serious ones, of immortality and so on.

"You'd better come down now," he said. "I was afraid to warn you until I

saw you climbing the lattice. Then I knew you were still young enough to

take a friendly word of advice."

I got down then and stood before him. He was magnificent. Is there

anything more beautiful than a tall man with a gleaming expanse of dress

shirt? I think not.

But he was staring at me.

"Look here," he said. "I'm afraid I've made a mistake after all. I

thought you were a little girl."

"That needn't worry you. Everybody does," I replied. "I'm seventeen, but

I shall be a mere child until I come out."

"Oh!" he said.

"One day I am a child in the nursery," I said. "And the next I'm grown

up and ready to be sold to the highest bidder."

"I beg your pardon, I----"

"But I am as grown up now as I will ever be," I said. "And indeed more

so. I think a great deal now, because I have plenty of time. But my

sister never thinks at all. She is too busy."

"Suppose we sit on the bench. The moon is too high to be a menace, and

besides, I am not dangerous. Now, what do you think about?"

"About life, mostly. But of course there is death, which is beautiful

but cold. And--one always thinks of love, doesn't one?"

"Does one?" he asked. I could see he was much interested. As for me, I

dared not consider whom it was who sat beside me, almost touching. That

way lay madness.

"Don't you ever," he said, "reflect on just ordinary things, like

clothes and so forth?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I don't get enough new clothes to worry about. Mostly I think of my

work."

"Work?"

"I am a writer" I said in a low, earnest tone.

"No! How--how amazing. What do you write?"

"I'm on a play now."

"A comedy?"

"No. A tragedy. How can I write a comedy when a play must always end

in a catastrophe? The book says all plays end in crisis, denouement and

catastrophe."

"I can't believe it," he said. "But, to tell you a secret, I never read

any books about plays."

"We are not all gifted from berth, as you are," I observed, not to

merely please him, but because I considered it the simple truth.

He pulled out his watch and looked at it in the moonlight.

"All this reminds me," he said, "that I have promised to go to work

tonight. But this is so--er--thrilling that I guess the work can wait.

Well--now go on."

Oh, the joy of that night! How can I describe it? To be at last in

the company of one who understood, who--as he himself had said in "Her

Soul"--spoke my own language! Except for the occasional mosquito,

there was no sound save the tumescent sea and his voice.

Often since that time I have sat and listened to conversation. How flat

it sounds to listen to father conversing about Gold, or Sis about Clothes,

or even to the young men who come to call, and always talk about

themselves.

We were at last interrupted in a strange manner. Mr. Patten came down

their walk and crossed to us, walking very fast. He stopped right in

front of us and said:

"Look here, Reg, this is about all I can stand."

"Oh, go away, and sing, or do something," said Mr. Beecher sharply.

"You gave me your word of honor" said the Patten man. "I can only remind

you of that. Also of the expense I'm incurring, and all the rest of it.

I've shown all sorts of patience, but this is the limit."

He turned on his heel, but came back for a last word or two.

"Now see here," he said, "we have everything fixed the way you said you

wanted it. And I'll give you ten minutes. That's all."

He stalked away, and Mr. Beecher looked at me.

"Ten minutes of heaven," he said, "and then perdition with that bunch.

Look here," he said, "I--I'm awfully interested in what you are telling

me. Let's cut off up the beach and talk."

Oh night of nights! Oh moon of moons!

Our talk was strictly business. He asked me my plot, and although I had

been warned not to do so, even to David Belasco, I gave it to him fully.

And even now, when all is over, I am not sorry. Let him use it if he

will. I can think of plenty of plots.

The real tragedy is that we met father. He had been ordered to give up

smoking, and I considered he had done so, mother feeling that I should be

encouraged in leaving off cigarettes. So when I saw the cigar I was sure

it was not father. It proved to be, however, and although he passed with

nothing worse than a glare, I knew I was in more trouble.

At last we reached the bench again, and I said good night. Our relations

continued business-like to the last. He said:

"Good night, little authoress, and let's have some more talks."

"I'm afraid I've bored you," I said.

"Bored me!" he said. "I haven't spent such an evening for years!"

The family acted perfectly absurd about it. Seeing that they were going

to make a fuss, I refused to say with whom I had been walking. You'd

have thought I had committed a crime.

"It has come to this, Barbara," mother said, pacing the floor. "You

cannot be trusted out of our sight. Where do you meet all these men? If

this is how things are now, what will it be when given your liberty?"

Well, it is to painful to record. I was told not to leave the place for

three days, although allowed the boat-house. And of course Sis had to

chime in that she'd heard a rumor I had run away and got married, and

although of course she knew it wasn't true, owing to no time to do so,

still where there was smoke there was fire.

But I felt that their confidence in me was going, and that night, after

all were in the land of dreams, I took that wretched suit of clothes and

so on to the boathouse, and hid them in the rafters upstairs.

I come now to the strange event of the next day, and its sequel.

The Patten place and ours are close together, and no other house near.

Mother had been very cool about the Pattens, owing to nobody knowing

them that we knew. Although I must say they had the most interesting

people all the time, and Sis was crazy to call and meet some of them.

Jane came that day to visit her aunt, and she ran down to see me first

thing.

"Come and have a ride," she said. "I've got the runabout, and after that

we'll bathe and have a real time."

But I shook my head.

"I'm a prisoner, Jane," I said.

"Honestly! Is it the play, or something else?"

"Something else, Jane," I said. "I can tell you nothing more. I am simply

in trouble, as usual."

"But why make you a prisoner, unless----" She stopped suddenly and

stared at me.

"He has claimed you!" she said. "He is here, somewhere about this place,

and now, having had time to think it over, you do not want to go to him.

Don't deny it. I see it in your face. Oh, Bab, my heart aches for you."

It sounded so like a play that I kept it up. Alas, with what results!

"What else can I do, Jane?" I said.

"You can refuse, if you do not love him. Oh Bab, I did not say it

before, thinking you loved him. But no man who wears clothes like those

could ever win my heart. At least, not permanently."

Well, she did most of the talking. She had finished the bath towel,

which was a large size, after all, and monogrammed, and she made me

promise never to let my husband use it. When she went away she left it

with me, and I carried it out and put it on the rafters, with the other

things--I seemed to be getting more to hide every day.

Things went all wrong the next day. Sis was in a bad temper, and as much

as said I was flirting with Carter Brooks, although she never intends to

marry him herself, owing to his not having money and never having asked

her.

I spent the morning in fixing up a studio in the boat-house, and felt

better by noon. I took two boards on trestles and made a desk, and

brought a dictionary and some pens and ink out. I use a dictionary

because now and then I am uncertain how to spell a word.

Events now moved swiftly and terribly. I did not do much work, being

exhausted by my efforts to fix up the studio, and besides, feeling that

nothing much was worth while when one's family did not and never would

understand. At eleven o'clock Sis and Carter and Jane and some others

went in bathing from our dock. Jane called up to me, but I pretended not

to hear. They had a good time judging by the noise, although I should

think Jane would cover her arms and neck in the water, being very thin.

Legs one can do nothing with, although I should think stripes going

around would help. But arms can have sleeves.

However--the people next door went in too, and I thrilled to the core

when Mr. Beecher left the bath-house and went down to the beech. What

a physique! What shoulders, all brown and muscular! And to think that,

strong as they were, they wrote the tender love scenes of his plays.

Strong and tender--what descriptive words they are! It was then that I

saw he had been vaccinated twice.

To resume. All the Pattens went in, and a new girl with them, in a

one piece suit. I do not deny that she was pretty. I only say that she

was not modest, and that the way she stood on the Patten's dock

and posed for Mr. Beecher's benefit was unnecessary and well, not

respectable.

She was nothing to me, nor I to her. But I watched her closely. I

confess that I was interested in Mr. Beecher. Why not? He was a public

character, and entitled to respect. Nay, even to love. But I maintain

and will to my dying day, that such love is different from that

ordinarily born to the other sex, and a thing to be proud of.

Well, I was seeing a drama and did not even know it. After the rest

had gone, Mr. Patten came to the door into Mr. Beecher's room in the

bath-house--they are all in a row, with doors opening on the sand--and

he had a box in his hand. He looked around, and no one was looking

except me, and he did not see me. He looked very fierce and glum, and

shortly after he carried in a chair and a folding card table. I thought

this was very strange, but imagine how I felt when he came out carrying

Mr. Beecher's clothes! He brought them all, going on his tiptoes and

watching every minute. I felt like screaming.

However, I considered that it was a practical joke, and I am no spoil

sport. So I sat still and waited. They stayed in the water a long time,

and the girl with the figure was always crawling out on the dock and

then diving in to show off. Leila and the rest got sick of her actions

and came in to lunch. They called up to me, but I said I was not hungry.

"I don't know what's come over Bab," I heard Sis say to Carter Brooks.

"She's crazy, I think."

"She's seventeen," he said. "That's all. They get over it mostly, but

she has it hard."

I loathed him.

Pretty soon the other crowd came up, and I could see every one knew the

joke but Mr. Beecher. They all scuttled into their doorways, and Mr.

Patten waited till Mr. Beecher was inside and had thrown out the shirt

of his bathing suit. Then he locked the door from the outside.

There was a silence for a minute. Then Mr. Beecher said in a terrible

voice.

"So that's the game, is it?"

"Now listen, Reg," Mr. Patten said, in a soothing voice. "I've tried

everything but force, and now I'm driven to that. I've got to have that

third act. The company's got the first two acts well under way, and I'm

getting wires about every hour. I've got to have that script."

"You go to Hell!" said Mr. Beecher. You could hear him plainly through

the window, high up in the wall. And although I do not approve of an

oath, there are times when it eases the tortured soul.

"Now be reasonable, Reg," Mr. Patten pleaded. "I've put a fortune in

this thing, and you're lying down on the job. You could do it in four

hours if you'd put your mind to it."

There was no answer to this. And he went on:

"I'll send out food or anything. But nothing to drink. There's champagne

on the ice for you when you've finished, however. And you'll find pens

and ink and paper on the table."

The answer to this was Mr. Beecher's full weight against the door. But it

held, even against the full force of his fine physic.

"Even if you do break it open," Mr. Patten said, "you can't go very far

the way you are. Now be a good fellow, and let's get this thing done.

It's for your good as well as mine. You'll make a fortune out of it."

Then he went into his own door, and soon came out, looking like a

gentleman, unless one knew, as I did, that he was a whited sepulcher.

How long I sat there, paralyzed with emotion, I do not know. Hannah

came out and roused me from my trance of grief. She is a kindly soul,

although too afraid of mother to be helpful.

"Come in like a good girl, Miss Bab," she said. "There's that fruit

salad that cook prides herself on, and I'll ask her to brown a bit of

sweetbread for you."

"Hannah," I said in a low voice, "there is a crime being committed in

this neighborhood, and you talk to me of food."

"Good gracious, Miss Bab!"

"I cannot tell you any more than that, Hannah," I said gently, "because

it is only being done now, and I cannot make up my mind about it. But of

course I do not want any food."

As I say, I was perfectly gentle with her, and I do not understand why

she burst into tears and went away.

I sat and thought it all over. I could not leave, under the

circumstances. But yet, what was I to do? It was hardly a police matter,

being between friends, as one may say, and yet I simply could not bare

to leave my ideal there in that damp bath-house without either food or,

as one may say, raiment.

About the middle of the afternoon it occurred to me to try to find a key

for the lock of the bath-house. I therefore left my studio and proceeded

to the house. I passed close by the fatal building, but there was no

sound from it.

I found a number of trunk-keys in a drawer in the library, and was about

to escape with them, when father came in. He gave me a long look, and

said:

"Bee still buzzing?"

I had hoped for some understanding from him, but my spirits fell at this

speech.

"I am still working, father," I said, in a firm if nervous tone. "I am

not doing as good work as I would if things were different, but--I am at

least content, if not happy."

He stared at me, and then came over to me.

"Put out your tongue," he said.

Even against this crowning infamy I was silent.

"That's all right," he said. "Now see here, Chicken, get into your

riding togs and we'll order the horses. I don't intend to let this

play-acting upset your health."

But I refused. "Unless, of course, you insist," I finished. He only

shook his head, however, and left the room. I felt that I had lost my

last friend.

I did not try the keys myself, but instead stood off a short distance

and threw them through the window. I learned later that they struck

Mr. Beecher on the head. Not knowing, of course, that I had flung them,

and that my reason was pure friendliness and idealism, he threw them

out again with a violent exclamation. They fell at my feet, and lay

there, useless, rejected, tragic.

At last I summoned courage to speak.

"Can't I do something to help?" I said, in a quaking voice, to the

window.

There was no answer, but I could hear a pen scratching on paper.

"I do so want to help you," I said, in a louder tone.

"Go, away" said his voice, rather abstracted than angry.

"May I try the keys?" I asked. Be still, my heart! For the scratching had

ceased.

"Who's that?" asked the beloved voice. I say 'beloved' because an ideal

is always beloved. The voice was beloved, but sharp.

"It's me."

I heard him mutter something, and I think he came to the door.

"Look here," he said. "Go away. Do you understand? I want to work. And

don't come near here again until seven o'clock."

"Very well," I said faintly.

"And then come without fail," he said.

"Yes, Mr. Beecher," I replied. How commanding he was! Strong but tender!

"And if anyone comes around making a noise, before that, you shoot them

for me, will you?"

"SHOOT them?"

"Drive them off, or use a bean-shooter. Anything. But don't yell at

them. It distracts me."

It was a sacred trust. I, and only I, stood between him and his MAGNUM

OPUS. I sat down on the steps of our bath-house, and took up my vigil.

It was about five o'clock when I heard Jane approaching. I knew it was

Jane, because she always wears tight shoes, and limps when unobserved.

Although having the reputation of the smallest foot of any girl in our

set in the city, I prefer comfort and ease, unhampered by heals--French

or otherwise. No man will ever marry a girl because she wears a small

shoe, and catches her heals in holes in the boardwalk, and has to soak

her feet at night before she can sleep. However----

Jane came on, and found me crouched on the doorstep, in a lowly

attitude, and holding my finger to my lips.

She stopped and stared at me.

"Hello," she said. "What do you think you are? A statue?"

"Hush, Jane," I said, in a low tone. "I can only ask you to be quiet and

speak in whispers. I cannot give the reason."

"Good heavens!" she whispered. "What has happened, Bab?"

"It is happening now, but I cannot explain."

"WHAT is happening?"

"Jane," I whispered, earnestly, "you have known me a long time and I have

always been trustworthy, have I not?"

She nodded. She is never exactly pretty, and now she had opened her

mouth and forgot to close it.

"Then ask no questions. Trust me, as I am trusting you." It seemed to

me that Mr. Beecher threw his pen at the door, and began to pace the

bath-house. Owing of course to his being in his bare feet, I was not

certain. Jane heard something, too, for she clutched my arm.

"Bab," she said, in intense tones, "if you don't explain I shall lose my

mind. I feel now that I am going to shriek."

She looked at me searchingly.

"Somebody is a prisoner. That's all."

It was the truth, was it not? And was there any reasons for Jane Raleigh

to jump to conclusions as she did, and even to repeat later in public

that I had told her that my lover had come for me, and that father had

locked him up to prevent my running away with him, immuring him in the

Patten's bath-house? Certainly not.

Just then I saw the boatman coming who looks after our motor boat, and I

tiptoed to him and asked him to go away, and not to come back unless he

had quieter boats and would not whistle. He acted very ugly about it, I

must say, but he went.

When I came back, Jane was sitting thinking, with her forehead all

puckered.

"What I don't understand, Bab," she said, "is, why no noise?"

"Because he is writing," I explained. "Although his clothing has been

taken away, he is writing. I don't think I told you, Jane, but that is

his business. He is a writer. And if I tell you his name you will faint

with surprise."

She looked at me searchingly.

"Locked up--and writing, and his clothing gone! What's he writing, Bab?

His will?"

"He is doing his duty to the end, Jane," I said softly. "He is writing

the last act of a play. The company is rehearsing the first two acts,

and he has to get this one ready, though the heavens fall."

But to my surprise, she got up and said to me, in a firm voice:

"Either you are crazy, Barbara Archibald, or you think I am. You've

been stuffing me for about a week, and I don't believe a word of it. And

you'll apologize to me or I'll never speak to you again."

She said this loudly, and then went away, And Mr. Beecher said, through

the door.

"What the devil's the row about?"

Perhaps my nerves were going, or possibly it was no luncheon and

probably no dinner. But I said, just as if he had been an ordinary

person:

"Go on and write and get through. I can't stew on these steps all day."

"I thought you were an amiable child."

"I'm not amiable and I'm not a child."

"Don't spoil your pretty face with frowns."

"It's MY face. And you can't see it anyhow," I replied, venting in

feminine fashion, my anger at Jane on the nearest object.

"Look here," he said, through the door, "you've been my good angel. I'm

doing more work than I've done in two months, although it was a dirty,

low-down way to make me do it. You're not going back on me now, are

you?"

Well, I was mollified, as who would not be? So I said:

"Well?"

"What did Patten do with my clothes?"

"He took them with him." He was silent, except for a muttered word.

"You might throw those keys back again," he said. "Let me know first,

however. You're the most accurate thrower I've ever seen."

So I threw them through the window and I believe hit the ink bottle.

But no matter. And he tried them, but none availed.

So he gave up, and went back to work, having saved enough ink to finish

with. But a few minutes later he called to me again, and I moved to the

doorstep, where I sat listening, while apparently admiring the sea. He

explained that having been thus forced, he had almost finished the last

act, and it was a corker. And he said if he had his clothes and some

money, and a key to get out, he'd go right back to town with it and

put it in rehearsal. And at the same time he would give the Pattens

something to worry about over night. Because, play or no play, it was a

rotten thing to lock a man in a bath-house and take his clothes away.

"But of course I can't get my clothes," he said. "They'll take cussed

good care of that. And there's the key too. We're up against it, little

sister."

Although excited by his calling me thus, I retained my faculties, and

said:

"I have a suit of clothes you can have."

"Thanks awfully," he said. "But from the slight acquaintance we have

had, I don't believe they would fit me."

"Gentleman's clothes," I said frigidly.

"You have?"

"In my studio," I said. "I can bring them, if you like. They look quite

good, although creased."

"You know" he said, after a moment's silence, "I can't quite believe

this is really happening to me! Go and bring the suit of clothes,

and--you don't happen to have a cigar, I suppose?"

"I have a large box of cigarettes."

"It is true," I heard him say through the door. "It is all true. I am

here, locked in. The play is almost done. And a very young lady on the

doorstep is offering me a suit of clothes and tobacco. I pinch myself. I

am awake."

Alas! Mingled with my joy at serving my ideal there was also grief. My

idle had feet of clay. He was a slave, like the rest of us, to his body.

He required clothes and tobacco. I felt that, before long, he might even

ask for an apple, or something to stay the pangs of hunger. This I felt

I could not bare.

Perhaps I would better pass over quickly the events of the next hour. I

got the suit and the cigarettes, and even Jane's bath towel, and threw

them in to him. Also I believe he took a shower, as I heard the water

running, At about seven o'clock he said he had finished the play. He put

on the clothes which he observed almost fitted him, although gayer than

he usually wore, and said that if I would give him a hair pin he thought

he could pick the lock. But he did not succeed.

Being now dressed, however, he drew a chair to the window and we

talked together. It seemed like a dream that I should be there, on such

intimate terms with a great playwright, who had just, even if under

compulsion, finished a last act, I bared my very soul to him, such as

about resembling Julia Marlowe, and no one understanding my craving to

achieve a place in the world of art. We were once interrupted by Hannah

looking for me for dinner. But I hid in a bath-house, and she went away.

What was food to me compared with such a conversation?

When Hannah had disappeared, he said suddenly:

"It's rather unusual, isn't it, your having a suit of clothes and

everything in your--er--studio?"

But I did not explain fully, merely saving that it was a painful story.

At half past seven I saw mother on the veranda looking for me, and I

ducked out of sight, I was by this time very hungry, although I did not

like to mention the fact, But Mr. Beecher made a suggestion, which was

this: that the Pattens were evidently going to let him starve until

he got through work, and that he would see them in perdition before

he would be the butt for their funny remarks when they freed him. He

therefore tried to escape out the window, but stuck fast, and finally gave

it up.

At last he said:

"Look here, you're a curious child, but a nervy one. How'd you like to

see if you can get the key? If you do we'll go to a hotel and have a

real meal, and we can talk about your career."

Although quivering with terror, I consented. How could I do otherwise,

with such a prospect? For now I began to see that all other emotions

previously felt were as nothing to this one. I confess, without shame,

that I felt the stirring of the tender passion in my breast. Ah me, that

it should have died ere it had hardly lived!

"Where is the key?" I asked, in a rapt but anxious tone.

He thought a while.

"Generally," he said, "it hangs on a nail at the back entry. But the

chances are that Patten took it up to his room this time, for safety,

You'd know it if you saw it. It has some buttons off somebody's bathing

suit tied to it."

Here it was necessary to hide again, as father came stocking out,

calling me in an angry tone. But shortly after-wards I was on my way

to the Patten's house, on shaking knees. It was by now twilight, that

beautiful period of romance, although the dinner hour also. Through the

dusk I sped, toward what? I knew not.

The Pattens and the one-piece lady were at dinner, and having a very

good time, in spite of having locked a guest in the bath-house. Being

used to servants and prowling around, since at one time when younger I

had a habit of taking things from the pantry, I was quickly able to see

that the key was not in the entry. I therefore went around to the front

door and went in, being prepared, if discovered, to say that someone was

in their bath-house and they ought to know it. But I was not heard among

their sounds of revelry, and was able to proceed upstairs, which I did.

But not having asked which was Mr. Patten's room, I was at a loss and

almost discovered by a maid who was turning down the beds--much too

early, also, and not allowed in the best houses until nine-thirty, since

otherwise the rooms look undressed and informal.

I had but time to duck into another chamber, and from there to a closet.

I REMAINED IN THAT CLOSET ALL NIGHT.

I will explain. No sooner had the maid gone than a woman came into the

room and closed the door. I heard her moving around and I suddenly felt

that she was going to bed, and might get her robe de nuit out of the

closet. I was petrified. But it seems, while she really WAS undressing

at that early hour, the maid had laid her night clothes out, and I was

saved.

Very soon a knock came to the door, and somebody came in, like Mrs.

Patten's voice and said: "You're not going to bed, surely!"

"I'm going to pretend to have a sick headache," said the other person,

and I knew it was the one-piece lady. "He's going to come back in a

frenzy, and he'll take it out on me, unless I'm prepared."

"Poor Reggie!" said Mrs. Patten, "To think of him locked in there alone,

and no clothes or anything. It's too funny for words."

"You're not married to him."

My heart stopped beating. Was SHE married to him? She was indeed. My

dream was over. And the worst part of it was that for a married man

I had done without food or exercise and now stood in a hot closet in

danger of a terrible fuss.

"No, thank heaven!" said Mrs. Patten. "But it was the only way to make

him work. He is a lazy dog. But don't worry. We'll feed him before he

sees you. He's always rather tractable after he's fed."

Were ALL my dreams to go? Would they leave nothing to my shattered

illusions? Alas, no.

"Jolly him a little, too," said----can I write it?--Mrs. Beecher. "Tell

him he's the greatest thing in the world. That will help some. He's

vain, you know, awfully vain. I expect he's written a lot of piffle."

Had they listened they would have heard a low, dry sob, wrung from

my tortured heart. But Mrs. Beecher had started a vibrator, and my

anguished cry was lost.

"Well," said Mrs. Patten, "Will has gone down to let him out, I expect

he'll attack him. He's got a vile temper. I'll sit with you till he

comes back, if you don't mind. I'm feeling nervous."

It was indeed painful to recall the next half hour. I must tell the

truth however. They discussed us, especially mother, who had not called.

They said that we thought we were the whole summer colony, although

every one was afraid of mother's tongue, and nobody would marry Leila,

except Carter Brooks, and he was poor and no prospects. And that I was

an incorrigible, and carried on something ghastly, and was going to be put

in a convent. I became justly furious and was about to step out and tell

them a few plain facts, when somebody hammered at the door and then came

in. It was Mr. Patten.

"He's gone!" he said.

"Well, he won't go far, in bathing trunks," said Mrs. Beecher.

"That's just it. His bathing trunks are there."

"Well, he won't go far without them!"

"He's gone so far I can't locate him."

I heard Mrs. Beecher get up.

"Are you in earnest, Will?" she said. "Do you mean that he has gone

without a stitch of clothes, and can't be found?"

Mrs. Patten gave a sort of screech.

"You don't think--oh Will, he's so temperamental. You don't think he's

drowned himself?"

"No such luck," said Mrs. Beecher, in a cold tone. I hated her for it.

True, he had deceived me. He was not as I had thought him. In our two

conversations he had not mentioned his wife, leaving me to believe him

free to love "where he listed," as the poet says.

"There are a few clues," said Mr. Patten. "He got out by means of a wire

hairpin, for one thing. And he took the manuscript with him, which he'd

hardly have done if he meant to drown himself. Or even if, as we fear,

he had no pockets. He has smoked a lot of cigarettes out of a candy box,

which I did not supply him, and he left behind a bath towel that does

not, I think, belong to us."

"I should think he would have worn it," said Mrs. Beecher, in a

scornful tone.

"Here's the bath towel," Mr. Patten went on. "You may recognize the

initials. I don't."

"B. P. A.," said Mrs. Beecher. "Look here, don't they call that--that

flibbertigibbet next door 'Barbara'?"

"The little devil!" said Mr. Patten, in a raging tone. "She let him out,

and of course he's done no work on the play or anything. I'd like to

choke her."

Nobody spoke then, and my heart beat fast and hard. I leave it to

anybody, how they'd like to be shut in a closet and threatened with a

violent death from without. Would or would they not ever be the same

person afterwords?

"I'll tell you what I'd do," said the Beecher woman. "I'd climb up the

back of father, next door, and tell him what his little daughter has

done, because I know she's mixed up in it, towel or no towel. Reg is

always sappy when they're seventeen. And she's been looking moon-eyed at

him for days."

Well, the Pattens went away, and Mrs. Beecher manicured her nails,--I

could hear her filing them--and sang around and was not much concerned,

although for all she knew he was in the briny deep, a corpse. How true

it is that "the paths of glory lead but to the grave."

I got very tired and much hotter, and I sat down on the floor. After what

seemed like hours, Mrs. Patten came back, all breathless, and she said:

"The girl's gone too, Clare."

"What girl?"

"Next door. If you want excitement, they've got it. The mother is in

hysterics and there's a party searching the beach for her body. The

truth is, of course, if that towel means anything."

"That Reg has run away with her, of course," said Mrs. Beecher, in a

resigned tone. "I wish he would grow up and learn something. He's becoming

a nuisance. And when there are so many interesting people to run away

with, to choose that chit!"

Yes, she said that, And in my retreat I could but sit and listen, and

of course perspire, which I did freely. Mrs. Patten went away, after

talking about the "scandal" for some time. And I sat and thought of the

beach being searched for my body, a thought which filled my eyes with

tears of pity for what might have been, I still hoped Mrs. Beecher would

go to bed, but she did not. Through the key hole I could see her with a

book, reading, and not caring at all that Mr. Beecher's body, and mine

too, might be washing about in the cruel sea, or have eloped to New York.

I loathed her.

At last I must have slept, for a bell rang, and there I was still in the

closet, and she was answering it.

"Arrested?" she said, "Well, I should think he'd better be, if what you

say about clothing is true.... Well, then--what's he arrested for?...

Oh, kidnapping! Well, if I'm any judge, they ought to arrest the

Archibald girl for kidnapping HIM. No, don't bother me with it tonight.

I'll try to read myself to sleep."

So this was marriage! Did she flee to her unjustly accused husband's side

and comfort him? Not she. She went to bed.

At daylight, being about smothered, I opened the closet door and drew a

breath of fresh air. Also I looked at her, and she was asleep, with her

hair in patent wavers. Ye gods!

The wife of Reginald Beecher thus to distort her looks at night! I could

not bare it.

I averted my eyes, and on my tiptoes made for the window.

My sufferings were over. In a short time I had slid down and was making

my way through the dewy morn toward my home. Before the sun was up,

or more than starting, I had climbed to my casement by means of a wire

trellis, and put on my 'robe de nuit'. But before I settled to sleep I

went to the pantry and there satisfied the pangs of hunger having had

nothing since breakfast the day before. All the lights seemed to be on,

on the lower floor, which I considered wasteful of Tanney, the butler.

But being sleepy, gave it no further thought. And so to bed, as the

great English dairy-keeper, Pepys, had said in his dairy.

It seemed but a few moments later that I heard a scream, and opening my

eyes, saw Leila in the doorway. She screamed again, and mother came and

stood beside her. Although very drowsy, I saw that they still wore their

dinner clothes.

They stared as if transfixed, and then mother gave a low moan, and said

to Sis:

"That unfortunate man has been in jail all night."

And Sis said: "Jane Raleigh is crazy. That's all." Then they looked at

me, and mother burst into tears. But Sis said:

"You little imp! Don't tell me you've been in that bed all night. I KNOW

BETTER."

I closed my eyes. They were not of the understanding sort, and never

would be.

"If that's the way you feel I shall tell you nothing," I said wearily.

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" mother said, in a slow and dreadful voice.

Well, I saw then that a part of the truth must be disclosed, especially

since she has for some time considered sending me to a convent, although

without cause, and has not done so for fear of my taking the veil. So I

told her this. I said:

"I spent the night shut in a clothes closet, but where is my secret.

I cannot tell you."

"Barbara! You MUST tell me."

"It is not my secret alone, mother."

She caught at the foot of the bed.

"Who was shut with you in that closet?" she demanded in a shaking voice.

"Barbara, there is another wretched man in all this. It could not have

been Mr. Beecher, because he has been in the station house all night."

I sat up, leaning on one elbow, and looked at her earnestly.

"Mother" I said, "you have done enough damage, interfering with

careers--not only mine, but another's imperiled now by not having a

last act. I can tell you no more, except"--here my voice took on a deep

and intense fiber--"that I have done nothing to be ashamed of, although

unconventional."

Mother put her hands to her face, and emitted a low, despairing cry.

"Come," Leila said to her, as to a troubled child. "Come, and Hannah can

use the vibrator on your spine."

So she went, but before she left she said:

"Barbara, if you will only promise to be a good girl, and give us a

chance to live this scandal down, I will give you anything you ask for."

"Mother!" Sis said, in an angry tone.

"What can I do, Leila?" mother said. "The girl is attractive, and

probably men will always be following her and making trouble. Think of

last winter. I know it is bribery, but it is better than scandal."

"I want nothing, mother," I said, in a low, heart stricken tone, "save to

be allowed to live my own life and to have a career."

"My heavens," mother said, "if I hear that word again, I'll go crazy."

So she went away, and Sis came over and looked down at me.

"Well!" she said. "What's happened anyhow? Of course you've been up to

some mischief, but I don't suppose anybody will ever know the truth

of it. I was hoping you'd make it this time and get married, and stop

worrying us."

"Go away, please, and let me sleep," I said. "As to getting married,

under no circumstances did I expect to marry him. He has a wife already.

Personally, I think she's a total loss. She wears patent wavers at

night, and sleeps with her mouth open. But who am I to interfere with

the marriage bond? I never have and never will."

But Sis only gave me a wild look and went away.

This, dear readers and schoolmates, is the true story of my meeting with

and parting from Reginald Beecher, the playwright. Whatever the papers

may say, it is not true, except the fact that he was recognized by Jane

Raleigh, who knew the suit he wore, when in the act of pawning his ring

to get money to escape from his captors (I. E., The Pattens). It

was the necktie which struck her first, and also his guilty expression.

As I was missing by that time, Jane put two and two together and made an

elopement.

Sometimes I sit and think things over, my fingers wandering "over the

ivory keys" of the typewriter they gave me to promise not to elope with

anybody--although such a thing is far from my mind--and the world seems

a cruel and unjust place, especially to those with ambition.

For Reginald Beecher is no longer my ideal, my night of the pen. I will

tell about that in a few words.

Jane Raleigh and I went to a matinee late in September before returning

to our institutions of learning. Jane clutched my arm as we looked at our

programs and pointed to something.

How my heart beat! For whatever had come between us, I was still loyal

to him.

This was a new play by him!

"Ah," my heart seemed to say, "now again you will hear his dear words,

although spoken by alien mouths.

"The love scenes----"

I could not finish. Although married and forever beyond me, I could

still hear his manly tones as issuing from the door of the Bath-house.

I thrilled with excitement. As the curtain rose I closed my eyes in

ecstasy.

"Bab!" Jane said, in a quavering tone.

I looked. What did I see? The bath-house itself, the very one. And as

I stared I saw a girl, wearing her hair as I wear mine, cross the stage

with a bunch of keys in her hand, and say to the bath-house door.

"Can't I do something to help? I do so want to help you."

MY VERY WORDS.

And a voice from beyond the bath-house door said:

"Who's that?"

HIS WORDS.

I could bare no more. Heedless of Jane's protests and anguish, I got up

and went out, into the light of day. My body was bent with misery.

Because at last I knew that, like mother and all the rest, he too, did

not understand me and never would! To him I was but material, the stuff

that plays are made of!=

```And now we know that he never could know,

```And did not understand.

```Kipling.=

Ignoring Jane's observation that the tickets had cost two dollars each,

I gathered up the scattered skeins of my life together, and fled.