I wonder what made me get on the subject of my sisters when I began
with Billy and the reason I had not written him as often as he has
written me, but that is the way I do everything in life. If I were a
preacher I wouldn't hold my job long, for the thing I started on would
have about as much connection with the thing I ended with as the moon
with milk. Not that that would be unusual, for a good many ministers
have the same failing and skip about just as I do, but my trouble would
be in hopping from one subject to another so fast that the congregation
would be in Jericho one minute and in Jerusalem the next and never know
how it made the jump. As I am never going to be a preacher, I am not
worrying about my unfitness to be one, but what does worry me sometimes
is that my hopping habit will be my ruination when I begin to write a
book. My characters will never keep together, or do the proper things
or say suitable ones. They will probably get so jumbled up no one will
be able to tell which is the chief hero or heroine, and there will be
no logical development at all, which my English teacher insists is an
elemental requirement of fiction if it isn't of life. I thought this
summer I was going to begin some sort of book just for practice, but by
the time I get through putting down the things I scribble about the
day's doings, and write to Father and send my weekly letter to Mother
and the girls, and run off something every now and then to Billy, and
answer the notes I get from Whythe and some of the kiddies around here
who think they're grown, I don't feel like writing on a book, which is
why I haven't begun one yet. I will never be able to write one that
tells of dark deeds and treacherous doings and love-sick lovers, or one
which has suspended interest or rapid action and narrow escapes, for I
know very little of such things, and I will never do much with plots.
The people I know do not have very exciting lives and here in
Twickenham they trot along and do the same thing over and over, and one
day is very much like the other, so there isn't much inspiration for a
thriller, and thrillers are the style in books to-day. That is one
reason I thought I had better wait until the style changes and while
waiting enjoy myself with the people here who know how to do that
better than any people on earth. I'm enjoying myself all right.
Of course, now that I am in love, I could write volumes on how
scrumptious it is and how floppy I feel whenever I see Whythe,
especially when he keeps his deep, dark eyes on me as if he were trying
to read my soul when we happen to meet at the foot of the hill and sit
on the worm fence for a while. I don't think he is trying to really
read my soul, for he isn't much on reading anything, but he certainly
can say beautiful things. They aren't so, but they sound well, and I
must admit I enjoy hearing them. They make me feel so grown-upy, and
then, too, it will be a great help when I begin my book to remember
what a man says on certain occasions and how he says it. They are
natural couriers, the men in this town are, but they don't always mean
to be taken in earnest, and Mr. James Burke came near getting in an
awful mess by paying a girl a lot of compliments he oughtn't to have
paid, he being a married man and she not knowing it. She was a very
serious person and believed all that was told her and came near
breaking her engagement with another man on account of the pretty
speeches Mr. Burke made to her. She was from Rhode Island and visiting
May Strudwick, who told her for mercy's sake not to pay any attention
to speeches of that sort and to hold on to the Rhode-Islander, for Mr.
Burke said the same fluff to all the girls who came to Twickenham, and
as long as it was just eyebrows and things of that kind no harm was
done. But she couldn't understand and went home sooner than she
expected. I understand. It's lots of fun--the different ways of
saying the same thing--and all enlightenment is advantageous.
A few nights ago Whythe got fearfully sentimental and said all sorts of
thrilly, foolish nonsense, and the way he said it certainly added to
its enjoyment. He's a corking courter, and if he could teach the way
he does it he would have crowded classes all right. We were at Bessie
Debree's party, and just before supper we went out on the side porch,
which has bushels of roses on it and no lights, and sat down on a
rustic bench in the corner where we could hear the music and see the
moon and not be seen, and the minute we sat I knew what was coming.
Whythe put his elbow on the back of the seat and, chin in the palm of
his hand, looked at me as if we were on a desert island and there was
no one else in all the world but me, and he would ask for no one else
if I alone was there; and then with his other hand he tried to take out
of my fingers a rose he had just pulled and given me. I remembered in
time that Jess had told me to keep my hands to myself if anybody seemed
interested in them, so I put the rose on the bench and sat on my hands
and asked him if he did not think Marjorie Graham a perfectly beautiful
person; and he said he hadn't noticed her sufficiently to know what she
looked like, as he never saw but one face now. And then he leaned a
little closer and asked me if I knew how wonderful I was and what my
eyes could do to a man's heart if I would only let come in them what
could come, and which he hoped would some day come only for him; and I
asked him what it was, not knowing, as it had never been mentioned
before, and he said it was a thing a man would die for. And then he
took the rose up and put it to his lips and asked me if I would marry
him; asked me if I could never care for him as he cared for me, for he
knew now that he had never really loved before, and if I would promise
to marry him he would be in heaven, his happiness would be so great.
It was perfectly thrilling, much better than anything I have ever seen
on the stage. He tried to get one of the hands I was still sitting on,
but I thought I had better not let him have it, as we were not engaged,
and Jess had said no affectionaries until you are engaged. And then,
too, I remembered he had probably said the same things several times
before, he seemed so familiar with them, and I had a feeling that Billy
was standing by, perfectly disgusted, but ready to fish me out if I
fell in. I came pretty near falling, and then I told Whythe I wouldn't
be through college until I was twenty and I didn't believe in waiting
for anything on earth for four years, and though it was awfully nice in
him to ask me to marry him, my father would have fits if he thought I
was listening to him do it, and that we had better go in.
I wish I had had a kodak and could have snapped the look that came over
his face when I suggested going in. He was perfectly astonished. Also
he was indignant and grieved and the look he bent upon me was truly
burning. As for his voice--Sothern couldn't have surpassed it. After
a while he said he thought I had more sympathy, more understanding of a
love such as his, and if I realized its depth I would not keep him
waiting four years, as four years at college was all nonsense for a
woman; and then he got my hand, anyhow, and I jumped up, for somebody
was coming, and, besides, if we hadn't gone in we'd have been in an
argument right off, with love left out, on the subject of education and
women. I did not want him to think I was not appreciative, however,
and though I went in with Mr. Keane, who had come for his dance, I gave
Whythe a little look that was not unfriendly as I left him. I am
afraid it was not even discouraging, but he seemed so mysterious and
tragic and amazed that I should leave him at such a critical time that
I thought a little look wouldn't hurt. I noticed, as we reached the
door, that he was lighting a cigarette, and I knew his feelings would
soon be soothed. Man has no sorrow that smoking may not cure.
When we went home that night other people were in the automobile (I
always see that that happens, knowing how Mother would feel about it)
and Whythe, of course, had no chance to continue a former conversation,
but his silence said a lot, and when he helped me out of the car he
helped much more than was necessary and held my hands so tight he
nearly broke my little finger; and the look he gave me was a thriller
all right. Every time I've thought of it since my heart has thumped so
I know I must be in love, for all books say that is a reliable symptom.
Being proposed to is awfully interesting, and the reason I like it so
much is that I am not apt to have many proposals of Whythe's sort, as
that kind has gone out of fashion, owing to golf and tennis and country
clubs and so much association. Plain statement is about all a girl
gets nowadays, I am told. Jacqueline Smith told Florine Mr. Smith had
wired her he had to go to South America and asked her if she would
marry him and go with him, and she wired back she would, and that was
all the courting they had, though they seem very happy. And a girl
Jess knows said the man she married had asked her how he stood with
her, that she stood all right with him, and that was the way they knew
they cared for each other. But I'm not that sort. I am very romantic
and I like a lot of words, which is why I am just crazy about Whythe's
letters.
If Whythe doesn't make a success of law or politics he could certainly
make a living writing letters of a certain sort. He's an expert at
them and greatly gifted, and though I don't say much in mine, thinking
it safer to telephone than write, I do tell him that his are perfectly
lovely, at which he doesn't seem displeased. He still begs me to marry
him, and is so fearfully polite about it that I don't like to ask him
what he has to marry on, and so far as I know he has only nerve and his
mother's home. I would not like to spend eternity as a maiden lady,
but I'd much rather so spend it than dwell under the vine and fig-tree
of the person who would be a mother-in-law to Whythe's wife. My heart
goes out to Elizabeth every time I think of the fate that will
eventually be hers. Also it goes out to the House of Eppes. When
opposing elements meet something usually happens. I'm betting on
Elizabeth, but I may be wrong.