Tonight I am no longer sick of Life, as I was then. My throws of anguish have departed. But I was then uterly reckless, and even considered running away and going on the stage myself.
I have long desired a Career for mvself, anyhow. I have a good mind, and learn easily, and I am not a Paracite. The idea of being such has always been repugnent to me, while the idea of a few dollars at a time doaled out to one of independant mind is galling. And how is one to remember what one has done with one"s Allowence, when it is mostly eaten up by Small Lones, Carfare, Stamps, Church Collection, Rose Water and Glicerine, and other Mild Cosmetics, and the aditional Food necesary when one is still growing?
To resume, Dear Dairy; having uterly failed with Hannah, and having shortly after met Sis on the stairs, I said to her, in a sisterly tone, intimite rather than fond:
"I darsay you can lend me five dollars for a day or so."
"I darsay I can. But I won"t," was her cruel reply.
"Oh, very well," I said breifly. But I could not refrain from making a grimase at her back, and she saw me in a mirror.
"When I think," she said heartlessly, "that that wreched school may be closed for weeks, I could scream."
"Well, scream!" I replied. "You"ll scream harder if I"ve brought the meazles home on me. And if you"re laid up, you can say good-bye to the Dishonorable. You"ve got him tide, maybe," I remarked, "but not thrown as yet."
(A remark I had learned from one of the girls, Trudie Mills, who comes from Montana.)
I was therfore compeled to dispose of my silver napkin ring from school.
Jane was bought up, she said, and I sold it to the cook for fifty cents and half a minse pie although baked with our own materials.
All my Fate, therfore, hung on a paltrey fifty cents.
I was torn with anxiety. Was it enough? Could I, for fifty cents, steel away from the sordid cares of life, and lose myself in obliviousness, gazing only it his dear Face, listening to his dear and softly modulited Voice, and wondering if, as his eyes swept the audiance, they might perchance light on me and brighten with a momentary gleam in their unfathomable Depths? Only this and nothing more, was my expectation.
How diferent was the reality!
Having ascertained that there was a matinee, I departed at an early hour after luncheon, wearing my blue velvet with my fox furs. White gloves and white topped shoes completed my outfit, and, my own CHAPEAU showing the effect of a rainstorm on the way home from church while away at school, I took a chance on one of Sis"s, a perfectly madening one of rose-colored velvet. As the pink made me look pale, I added a touch of rouge.
I looked fully out, and indeed almost Second Season. I have a way of a.s.suming a serious and Mature manner, so that I am frequently taken for older than I realy am. Then, taking a few roses left from the decorations, and thrusting them carelessly into the belt of my coat, I went out the back door, as Sis was getting ready for some girls to Bridge, in the front of the house.
Had I felt any greif at decieving my Familey, the bridge party would have knocked them. For, as usual, I had not been asked, although playing a good game myself, and having on more than one occasion won most of the money in the Upper House at school.
I was early at the theater. No one was there, and women were going around taking covers off the seats. My fifty cents gave me a good seat, from which I opined, alas, that the shop girl had been right and busness was rotten. But at last, after hours of waiting, the faint tuning of musicle instruments was heard.
From that time I lived in a daze. I have never before felt so strange.
I have known and respected the Other s.e.x, and indeed once or twise been kissed by it. But I had remained Cold. My Pulses had never flutered.
I was always conserned only with the fear that others had overseen and would perhaps tell. But now--I did not care who would see, if only Adrian would put his arms about me. Divine shamlessness! Brave Rapture!
For if one who he could not possably love, being so close to her in her make-up, if one who was indeed employed to be made Love to, could submit in public to his embrases, why should not I, who would have died for him?
These were my thoughts as the Play went on. The hours flew on joyous feet. When Adrian came to the footlights and looking aparently square at me, declaimed: "The World owes me a living. I will have it," I almost swooned. His clothes were worn. He looked hungry and ghaunt. But how true that
"Rags are royal raimant, when worn for virtue"s sake."
(I shall stop here and go down to the Pantrey. I could eat no dinner, being filled with emotion. But I must keep strong if I am to help Adrian in his Trouble. The minse pie was excelent, but after all pastrey does not take the place of solid food.)
LATER: I shall now go on with my recitle. As the theater was almost emty, at the end of Act One I put on the pink hat and left it on as though absent-minded. There was no one behind me. And, although during Act One I had thought that he perhaps felt my presense, he had not once looked directly at me.
But the hat captured his erant gaze, as one may say. And, after capture, it remained on my face, so much so that I flushed and a woman sitting near with a very plain girl in a Skunk Coller, observed:
"Realy, it is outragous."
Now came a moment which I thrill even to recolect. For Adrian plucked a pink rose from a vase--he was in the Milionaire" s house, and was starving in the midst of luxury--and held it to his lips.
The rose, not the house, of course. Looking over it, he smiled down at me.
LATER: It is midnight. I cannot sleep. Perchanse he to is lieing awake.
I am sitting at the window in my ROBE DE NUIT. Below, mother and Sis have just come in, and Smith has slamed the door of the car and gone back to the GARAGE. How puney is the life my Familey leads! Nothing but eating and playing, with no Higher Thoughts.
A man has just gone by. For a moment I thought I recognised the footstep. But no, it was but the night watchman.
JANUARY 17TH. Father still away. No money, as mother absolutely refuses on account of Maidie Mackenzie"s gown, which she had to send away to be repaired.
JANUARY 18TH. Father still away. The Hon. sent Sis a huge bunch of orkids today. She refused me even one. She is always tight with flowers and candy.
JANUARY 19TH. The paper says that Adrian"s Play is going to close the end of next week. No busness. How can I endure to know that he is sufering, and that I cannot help, even to the extent of buying one ticket? Matinee today, and no money. Father still away.
I have tried to do a kind Deed today, feeling that perhaps it would soften mother"s heart and she would advance my Allowence. I offered to manacure her nails for her, but she refused, saying that as Hannah had done it for many years, she guessed she could manage now.
JANUARY 20TH. Today I did a desparate thing, dear Dairy.
"The desparatest is the wisest course." Butler.
It is Sunday. I went to Church, and thought things over. What a wonderfull thing it would be if I could save the play! Why should I feel that my s.e.x is a handycap?
The recter preached on "The Opportunaties of Women." The Sermon gave me courage to go on. When he said, "Women today step in where men are afraid to tred, and bring success out of failure," I felt that it was meant for me.
Had no money for the Plate, and mother atempted to smugle a half dollar to me. I refused, however, as if I cannot give my own money to the Heathen, I will give none. Mother turned pale, and the man with the plate gave me a black look. What can he know of my reasons?
Beresford lunched with us, and as I discouraged him entirely, he was very atentive to Sis. Mother is planing a big Wedding, and I found Sis in the store room yesterday looking up mother"s wedding veil.
No old stuff for me.
I guess Beresford is trying to forget that he kissed my hand the other night, for he called me "Little Miss Barbara" today, meaning little in the sense of young. I gave him a stern glanse.
"I am not any littler than the other night," I observed.
"That was merely an afectionate diminutive," he said, looking uncomfortable.
"If you don"t mind," I said coldly, "you might do as you have hertofore--reserve your afectionate advances until we are alone."
"Barbara!" mother said. And began quickly to talk about a Lady Somthing or other we"d met on a train in Switzerland. Because--they can talk until they are black in the face, dear Dairy, but it is true we do not know any of the British n.o.bilaty, except the aforementioned and the man who comes once a year with flavering extracts, who says he is the third son of a Barronet.