I haven't seen Whythe alone but once since the night of the MacLean
party, and then I stopped any tendencies that showed signs of being
personal, and talked most of the time about the picnic which we can't
have until late in the month. Every day is engaged up to the
twenty-fourth. Whythe tried to talk of Mr. Algernon Grice Baker, but I
cut that out also. Sarcasm doesn't suit him, and some day he might be
sorry. The Superseder has gone, however, and every day Elizabeth
passes Whythe's office, and every day Whythe happens to be at his
window at the time of passing. They speak, but so far that is all. I
am sorry the picnic has to wait so long. They are two silly children.
Their fingers aren't in their mouths, but their heads are on the side
when they see each other, and the thing's getting on my nerves. Almost
any kind of sin is easier to stand than some sorts of silliness.
I wonder why I stay awake so much at night! It's very unusual, and I
try my best to go to sleep, but I can't sleep. Always I am thinking of
Mr. William Spencer Sloane and the things I would say to him if he were
in hearing distance. Not one line have I had from him for more than
two weeks. Not a card or a little present, which he usually sends from
every place he goes to, or any sign to show he is living. I got so mad
when I realized he hadn't noticed me for fourteen days that I couldn't
keep in things which had to come out, and, seeing Miss Susanna was
sleeping the sleep of worn-outness, I got up the other night and
lighted a candle behind the bed, and on the floor I wrote a letter that
maybe wasn't altogether as accurate as it might have been. I wouldn't
have sent it the next day if it hadn't been for a letter I got from
Jess, but after I read hers I sent mine flying.
I haven't cooled down yet from reading Jess's letter. I am not going
to cool down until I see the cause of it face to face, and if Billy
thinks it makes the least difference to me how he amuses himself or
with whom he spends his time sightseeing he thinks Wrong! I was going
to tear up the letter I had written him in the middle of the night for
the relief of indignations and because in the middle of the night
things seem so much bigger and harder and stranger than in the
daylight; but after I read the letter from Jess I added a postscript to
mine and almost ran down to the post-office to mail it, for fear if I
didn't do it quick I mightn't do it at all. Ever since I sent it off I
have been perfectly horrid, and I can hardly stand myself. I have put
off trying to make Whythe and Elizabeth see how stupid they are, and as
Elizabeth hasn't been very nice to me I haven't felt it to be my duty
to show her what a goose she is. Neither have I told Whythe that
almost any girl who adored him would do for his wife. As I don't adore
I wouldn't do, and I think he is beginning to take it in. A dozen
times of late he has told me he doesn't understand me. He does not.
And never will.
The thing in Jess's letter which made me hot was this: "What is the
matter with you and Billy? Pat says (Pat is Patricia, Billy's sister)
that you've been pretty horrid about writing him, and he's been
blue-black at not getting letters from you; but at present he is having
a good time with a very jolly girl from the West who is at their hotel.
Chirp him something cheerful, Canary Bird. If I were younger or Billy
older you shouldn't have him. I'd have him myself. I'm not going to
stand for bad treatment of him, and if those Southern boys who make
love to every pretty girl they see, and make it better than any boys on
earth, have made you forget an old friend, I'm coming down and take you
back home. Behave yourself, Kitty Canary, and write Billy the sort of
letter we scream over up here." And then she went on with other things.
It is ridiculous in Pat to say I haven't written Billy! I have. Three
long letters and three cards, and certainly he can't expect more than
that, as he hasn't been gone but two months and five days; and,
besides, friends ought to have such confidence in each other that they
don't need letters to prove their friendship. Not a word have I had
from him in more than two weeks, and if Jess thinks I am going to write
him a chirp letter (which he won't have time to read if he is going
around so much with a Western girl and having so much fun) she, too,
thinks Wrong. That Westerner explains why I haven't heard from him for
so long. It is outrageous in Billy to behave as he has been behaving.
All men are alike. Every one of them. It was ignorance in me to
imagine Billy was different. He isn't. The more I thought of how
mistaken I had been in him the madder I got, and I just wrote a
postscript to my letter and flew to the post-office with it. It seemed
providential that my letter was ready to send. I hope he will read it
while on one of his joyous excursions with the Western Woman, who is
doubtless twenty-five, maybe thirty, and just making use of Billy, who
hasn't sense enough to see it. I nearly cried my eyes out last night,
before Miss Susanna came up to bed, because it was necessary to send
him such a letter. Still, Billy has to learn things in life and he
might as well learn them early. What I wrote was this:
_Dear Billy,--I have been having such a perfectly grand time lately
that it has been impossible to squeeze out a scrap in which to write
you, and yet I have wanted to do so, for I am sure you will be glad to
know how fearfully happy I am and what is causing the happiness. I am
in love. It is the most wonderful thing I have ever been in, and
thrillingly interesting. I suppose you have been in it many times, but
not my way, or you would have mentioned it, just as I am doing to you,
as we are such old friends, and friends have the right to know of
important happenings. I hope you will like each other when you meet,
for, though you are very unlike, you are both made of male material,
and I have often noticed that men have many peculiarities in common.
One of them is out of sight out of love, and a great readiness to be
admired and entertained. He is a lawyer and couldn't be better born,
though he might be better educated; still, one mustn't expect all
things in one man, and his eyes are so wonderful, and he uses such
poetic prose, that the lack of money and a few other lacks shouldn't
count. He lives in a beautiful old house which has proud traditions
and no bathrooms, and his family is one of the oldest and most
disagreeable in America; still, we would not have to live with them if
we were married. Nothing on earth could make me sleep under the same
roof with his sisters, who are so churchy that the minister himself is
subject under them. And neither would it be safe for me to be too
closely associated with his mother. However, things of that sort are
in the distance, which may be far or may not, and I am not thinking of
immediate marriage, but just how magnificent it is to have somebody in
love with you who knows how to say so in the most delicious way, and
with a voice that, when the moon is out, is truly heavenly. I am
telling you about it because I thought you might be interested and
would like to know of my happiness; but, of course, I don't want you to
tell any one else, as it is still a secret and all so indefinite that
it wouldn't do to speak of it to any one but you. I am scribbling this
in the middle of the night, because I can't sleep for thinking of some
one, and because there is no time in the day in which to write. I hope
you are having a great time. Give my love to the family and write me
of your gladness at knowing of mine._
_As ever,
Kitty._
Now what do you suppose made me write such slush as that? And why is a
female person born with such horridness in her that she can say things
that are not so with a smile in public and cry her eyes out when alone?
That's what I have been doing lately, though I can't let tears have
much time, for I am not by nature a crier, and they would disturb Miss
Susanna at night. In my secret heart I just wrote that letter to Billy
because I was indignant with him for not writing to me for more than
two weeks, and I didn't intend to let him think I was sitting on a
tombstone waving a willow branch in one hand and wiping tears away with
the other. And, besides, I have been in love. Summer love. And it
has been exciting. No one could expect me to go through life and not
have but one experience in love making and hearing, and because a girl
enjoys the different manners of expression it doesn't mean she is not
particular about the story not being illustrated. I don't illustrate
or allow illustrations, which, of course, lessens some of the thrill,
but I promised Jess I would always draw the line at the right time, and
I have. I have not been engaged for half a minute, and I wouldn't have
added the postscript if it hadn't been for her letter and what she told
me about that girl from some Western town who is no more his sort than
I am her brother's. Billy is perfectly blind about some things, and
has no discrimination where it is most needed. Anyhow, I added the
postscript:
_P.S.--By the time you get this I may be engaged. Thank you for what
you would say if here._
_K. C._