Chapter 3 HER DIARY BEING THE DAILY JOURNAL OF THE SUB-DEB

JANUARY 1st. I have today received this diary from home, having come back a few days early to make up a French condition.

Weather, clear and cold.

New Year's dinner. Roast chicken (Turkey being very expensive), mashed turnips, sweet potatoes and mince pie.

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

For instance, at dinner today, being mostly faculty and a few girls who live in the far West, the conversation was entirely on buying a phonograph for dancing because the music teacher has the measles and is quarantined in the infirmary. And on Miss Everett's cousin, who has written a play.

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

New Year's resolution-to help someone every day. Today helped Mademoiselle to put on her rubbers.

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

Some of the girls are coming back. They straggle in, and put the favors they got at cotillions on the dresser, and their holiday gifts, and each one relates some amorous experience while at home. Dear Diary, is there something wrong with me, that love has passed me by? I have had offers of devotion but none that appealed to me, being mostly either too young or not attracting me by physical charm. I am not cold, although frequently accused of it, Beneath my frigid exterior beats a warm heart. I intend to be honest in this diary, and so I admit it. But, except for passing fancies-one being, alas, for a married man-I remain without the divine passion.

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

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

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

Today's helpful deed-assisted one of the younger girls with her spelling.

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

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

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

A few helpful deeds-nothing worth putting down.

JANUARY 9TH. Boil cut.

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

Mademoiselle is sick and no French. MISERICORDE!

Helpful deed-sent Mademoiselle some fudge, but this school does not encourage kindness. Reprimanded for cooking in room. School sympathizes with me. We will go to Miss Everett's cousin's play, but we will damn it with faint praise.

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

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

How wonderful to have them said to one night after night, the while being in his embrace, his tender arms around one! I refer to the heroine in the play, to whom he says the above rapturous words.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mademoiselle has the measles.

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

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

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

She gave me a bitter glance.

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

"Measles."

She snatched up her ball gown.

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

She flounced out, and shortly afterward mother took a minute from the florist, and came upstairs.

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

"Can't I dance a little?"

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

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

"Barbara!" said mother.

"I suppose you have some one on the string for her," I said, with the abandon of my thwarted hopes. "Well, I hope she gets him. Because if not, I daresay I shall be kept in the cradle for years to come."

"You will come out when you reach a proper age," she said, "if your impertinence does not kill me off before my time."

Dear Diary, I am fond of my mother, and I felt repentant and stricken.

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

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

"Barbara, sometimes I think you have no affection for your sister."

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

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

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

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

"I've just said, mother--"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fickle or polygamous-which?

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

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

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

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

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

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

I then made my way down the back stairs.

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

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

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

JANUARY 14TH. How complicated my life grows, Dear Diary! How full and yet how incomplete! How everything begins and nothing ends!

HE is in town.

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

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

I ate a sausage.

What, Dear Diary, was there to say?

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

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

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

Her tone cut me to the heart. After all she was my own mother, or at least maintained so, in spite of numerous questions engendered by our lack of resemblance, moral as well as physical. But I did not offer to embarrass her, as she was at that moment poring out her tea. I hid my misery behind the morning paper, and there I beheld the fated vision. Had I felt any doubt as to the state of my affections it was settled then. My heart leaped in my bosom. My face suffused. My hands trembled so that a piece of sausage slipped from my fork. His picture looked out at me with that well remembered gaze from the depths of the morning paper!

Oh, Adrian, Adrian!

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

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

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

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

"Love! What sort of love?"

I sat up and stared at her.

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

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

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Do you blush to look back on it?"

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

"I wash my hands of you!" she said. "You are impertinent and indelicate. At your age I was an innocent child, not troubling with things that did not concern me. As for love, I had never heard of it until I came out."

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

"Silence!" mother shrieked. And seeing that she persisted in ignoring the real things of life while in my presence, I went out, clutching the precious paper to my heart.

JANUARY 15TH. I am alone in my boudoir (which is really the old schoolroom, and used now for a sewing room).

My very soul is sick, oh Diary. How can I face the truth? How write it out for my eyes to see? But I must. For something must be done! The play is failing.

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

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

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

"Not intimately," I replied.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How much do you want?" she asked.

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

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

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

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

I have long desired a career for myself, anyhow. I have a good mind, and learn easily, and I am not a parasite. The idea of being such has always been repugnant to me, while the idea of a few dollars at a time doled out to one of independent mind is galling. And how is one to remember what one has done with one's allowance, when it is mostly eaten up by small loans, carfare, stamps, church collection, rose water and glycerin, and other mild cosmetics, and the additional food necessary when one is still growing?

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, scream!" I replied. "You'll scream harder if I've brought the measles home on me. And if you're laid up, you can say good-bye to the dishonorable. You've got him tied, 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 therefore compelled 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 mince pie although baked with our own materials.

All my fate, therefore, hung on a paltry fifty cents.

I was torn with anxiety. Was it enough? Could I, for fifty cents, steal away from the sordid cares of life, and lose myself in obliviousness, gazing only it his dear face, listening to his dear and softly modulated voice, and wondering if, as his eyes swept the audience, 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 different 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 maddening one of rose-colored velvet. As the pink made me look pale, I added a touch of rouge.

I looked fully out, and indeed almost second season. I have a way of assuming a serious and mature manner, so that I am frequently taken for older than I really 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 play bridge, in the front of the house.

Had I felt any grief at deceiving my family, 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 business was rotten. But at last, after hours of waiting, the faint tuning of musical instruments was heard.

From that time I lived in a daze. I have never before felt so strange. I have known and respected the other sex, and indeed once or twice been kissed by it. But I had remained cold. My pulses had never fluttered. I was always concerned 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 shamelessness! Brave Rapture! For if one who he could not possibly 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 embraces, 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 apparently 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 gaunt. But how true that

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

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

LATER: I shall now go on with my recital. As the theater was almost empty, 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 presence, he had not once looked directly at me.

But the hat captured his errant 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 collar, observed:

"Really, it is outrageous."

Now came a moment which I thrill even to recollect. For Adrian plucked a pink rose from a vase-he was in the millionaire'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. Perchance he too, is lying awake. I am sitting at the window in my robe de nuit. Below, mother and Sis have just come in, and Smith has slammed the door of the car and gone back to the garage. How puny is the life my family leads! Nothing but eating and playing, with no higher thoughts.

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

JANUARY 17TH. Father still away. No money, as mother absolutely refuses on account of Maddie 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 orchids 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 business. How can I endure to know that he is suffering, 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 allowance. I offered to manicure 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 desperate thing, dear Diary.

"The desperate is the wisest course." Butler.

It is Sunday. I went to church, and thought things over. What a wonderful thing it would be if I could save the play! Why should I feel that my sex is a handicap?

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

Had no money for the plate, and mother attempted to smuggle 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 attentive 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 glance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He looked at me, and said:

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

He came very close, dear Diary, and suddenly I saw in his eyes the horrible truth. He thought me in love with him, and sending for him while the family was out.

Words cannot paint my agony of soul. I stepped back, but he seized my hand, in a caressing gesture.

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

Had my affections not been otherwise engaged, I should have thrilled at his accents. But, although handsome and of good family, though poor, I could not see it that way.

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

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

He looked dumfounded.

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

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

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

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

Are all men to be my lovers?

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

"What made you send for me, then?"

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

"Thanks."

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

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

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

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

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

He drew a long breath.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Frequently!"

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

"Bab," he said, suddenly turning and facing me, "an awful thought has come to me. You are in love-and not with me!"

"I am in love, and not with you," I said in tragic tones.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Nothing of which I am ashamed," I said, rising to my full height. "I have come to you for help, Carter. That play must not fail!"

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

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

"It is a beautiful play. Oh, Carter, when at the end he takes his sweetheart in his arms-the leading lady, and not at all attractive. Jane Raleigh says that the star generally hates his leading lady-there is not a dry eye in the house."

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

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

"Tell me about it," he said.

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

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

He started out, but he came back.

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

Again I drew myself to my full height.

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

He gazed at me in a rapt manner.

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

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

Oh Adrien, my Thespian, my Love.

JANUARY 21ST. I have a bad cold, Dear Diary, and feel rotten. But only my physical condition is such. I am happy beyond words. This morning, while mother and Sis were out I called up the theater and inquired the price of a box. The man asked me to hold the line, and then came back and said it would be ten dollars. I told him to reserve it for Miss Putnam-my middle name.

I am both terrified and happy, dear Diary, as I lie here in bed with a hot water bottle at my feet. I have helped the play by buying a box, and tonight I shall sit in it alone, and he will perceive me there, and consider that I must be at least twenty, or I would not be there at the theater alone. Hannah has just come in and offered to lend me three dollars. I refused haughtily, but at last rang for her and took two. I might as well have a taxi tonight.

1 A. M. The family was there! I might have known it. Never do I have any luck. I am a broken thing, crushed to earth. But "Truth crushed to earth will rise again."-Whittier?

I had my dinner in bed, on account of my cold, and was let severely alone by the family. At seven I rose and with palpitating fingers dressed myself in my best evening frock, which is a pale yellow. I put my hair up, and was just finished, when mother knocked. It was terrible.

I had to duck back into bed and crush everything. But she only looked in and said to try and behave for the next three hours, and went away.

At a quarter to eight I left the house in a clandestine manner by means of the cellar and the area steps, and on the pavement drew a long breath. I was free, and I had twelve dollars.

Act One went well, and no disturbance. Although Adrian started when he saw me. The yellow looked very well.

I had expected to sit back, sheltered by the curtains, and only visible from the stage. I have often read of this method. But there were no curtains. I therefore sat, turning a stoney profile to the audience, and ignoring it, as though it were not present, trusting to luck that no one I knew was there.

He saw me. More than that, he hardly took his eyes from the box wherein I sat. I am sure to that he had mentioned me to the company, for one and all they stared at me until I think they will know me the next time they see me.

I still think I would not have been recognized by the family had I not, in a very quiet scene, commenced to sneeze. I did this several times, and a lot of people looked annoyed, as though I sneezed because I liked to sneeze. And I looked back at them defiantly, and in so doing, encountered the gaze of my maternal parent.

Oh, Dear Diary, that I could have died at that moment, and thus, when stretched out a pathetic figure, with tuber roses and other flowers, have compelled their pity. But alas, no. I sneezed again!

Mother was wedged in, and I saw that my only hope was flight. I had not had more than between three and four dollars worth of the evening, but I glanced again and Sis was boring holes into me with her eyes. Only Beresford knew nothing, and was trying to hold Sis's hand under her opera cloak. Any fool could tell that.

But, as I was about to rise and stand poised, as one may say, for departure, I caught Adrian's eyes, with a gleam in their deep depths. He was, at the moment, toying with the bowl of roses. He took one out, and while the leading lady was talking, he edged his way toward my box. There, standing very close, apparently by accident, he dropped the rose into my lap.

Oh Diary! Diary!

I picked it up, and holding it close to me, I flew.

I am now in bed and rather chilly. Mother banged at the door some time ago, and at last went away, muttering.

I am afraid she is going to be pettish.

JANUARY 22ND. Father came home this morning, and things are looking up. Mother of course tackled him first thing, and when he came upstairs I expected an awful time. But my father is a real person, so he only sat down on the bed, and said:

"Well, chicken, so you're at it again!"

I had to smile, although my chin shook.

"You'd better turn me out and forget me," I said. "I was born for trouble. My advice to the family is to get out from under. That's all."

"Oh, I don't know," he said. "It's pretty convenient to have a family to drop on when the slump comes." He thumped himself on the chest. "A hundred and eighty pounds," he observed, "just intended for little daughters to fall back on when other things fail."

"Father," I inquired, putting my hand in his, because I had been bearing my burdens alone, and my strength was failing: "do you believe in Love?"

"DO I!"

"But I mean, not the ordinary attachment between two married people. I mean Love-the real thing."

"I see! Why, of course I do."

"Did you ever read Pope, father?"

"Pope? Why I-probably, chicken. Why?"

"Then you know what he says: 'Curse on all laws but those which Love has made.'"

"Look here," he said, suddenly laying a hand on my brow. "I believe you are feverish."

"Not feverish, but in trouble," I explained. And so I told him the story, not saying much of my deep passion for Adrian, but merely that I had formed an attachment for him which would persist during life. Although I had never yet exchanged a word with him.

Father listened and said it was indeed a sad story, and that he knew my deep nature, and that I would be true to the end. But he refused to give me any money, except enough to pay back Hannah and Carter Brooks, saying:

"Your mother does not wish you to go to the theater again, and who are we to go against her wishes? And anyhow, maybe if you met this fellow and talked to him, you would find him a disappointment. Many a pretty girl I have seen in my time, who didn't pan out according to specifications when I finally met her."

At this revelation of my beloved father's true self, I was almost stunned. It is evident that I do not inherit my being true as steel from him. Nor from my mother, who is like steel in hardness but not in being true to anything but social position.

As I record this awful day, dear Dairy, there comes again into my mind the thought that I DO NOT BELONG HERE. I am not like them. I do not even resemble them in features. And, if I belonged to them, would they not treat me with more consideration and less discipline? Who, in the family, has my nose?

It is all well enough for Hannah to observe that I was a pretty baby with fat cheeks. May not Hannah herself, for some hidden reason, have brought me here, taking away the real I to perhaps languish unseen and "waste my sweetness on the desert air"? But that way lies madness. Life must be made the best of as it is, and not as it might be or indeed ought to be.

Father promised before he left that I was not to be scolded, as I felt far from well, and was drinking water about every minute.

"I just want to lie here and think about things," I said, when he was going. "I seem to have so many thoughts. And father--"

"Yes, chicken."

"If I need any help to carry out a plan I have, will you give it to me, or will I have to go to total strangers?"

"Good gracious, Bab!" he exclaimed. "Come to me, of course."

"And you'll do what you're told?"

He looked out into the hall to see if mother was near. Then, dear Dairy, he turned to me and said:

"I always have, Bab. I guess I'll run true to form."

JANUARY 23RD. Much better today. Out and around. Family (mother and Sis) very dignified and nothing much to say. Evidently have promised father to restrain themselves. Father rushed and not coming home to dinner.

Beresford on edge of proposing. Sis very jumpy.

LATER: Jane Raleigh is home for her cousin's wedding! Is coming over. We shall take a walk, as I have much to tell her.

6 P. M. What an afternoon! How shall I write it? This is a Milestone in my Life.

I have met him at last. Nay, more. I have been in his dressing room, conversing as though accustomed to such things all my life. I have concealed under the mattress a real photograph of him, beneath which he has written, "Yours always, Adrian Egleston."

I am writing in bed, as the room is chilly-or I am-and by putting out my hand I can touch his pictured likeness.

Jane came around for me this afternoon, and mother consented to a walk. I did not have a chance to take Sis's pink hat, as she keeps her door locked now when not in her room. Which is ridiculous, because I am not her type, and her things do not suit me very well anyhow. And I have never borrowed anything but gloves and handkerchiefs, except Maddie's dress and the hat.

She had, however, not locked her bathroom, and finding a bunch of violets in the washbowl I put them on. It does not hurt violets to wear them, and anyhow I knew Carter Brooks had sent them and she ought to wear only Beresford's flowers if she means to marry him.

Jane at once remarked that I looked changed.

"Naturally," I said, in a blase' manner.

"If I didn't know you, Bab," she observed, "I would say that you are rouged."

I became very stiff and distant at that. For Jane, although my best friend, had no right to be suspicious of me.

"How do I look changed?" I demanded.

"I don't know. You-Bab, I believe you are up to some mischief!"

"Mischief?"

"You don't need to pretend to me," she went on, looking into my very soul. "I have eyes. You're not decked out this way for ME."

I had meant to tell her nothing, but spying just then a man ahead who walked like Adrian, I was startled. I clutched her arm and closed my eyes.

"Bab!" she said.

The man turned, and I saw it was not he. I breathed again. But Jane was watching me, and I spoke out of an overflowing heart.

"For a moment I thought-Jane, I have met THE ONE at last."

"Barbara!" she said, and stopped dead. "Is it any one I know?"

"He is an actor."

"Ye gods!" said Jane, in a tense voice. "What a tragedy!"

"Tragedy indeed," I was compelled to admit. "Jane, my heart is breaking. I am not allowed to see him. It is all off, forever."

"Darling!" said Jane. "You are trembling all over. Hold on to me. Do they disapprove?"

"I am never to see him again. Never."

The bitterness of it all overcame me. My eyes suffused with tears.

But I told her, in broken accents, of my determination to stick to him, no matter what. "I might never be Mrs. Adrian Egleston, but--"

"Adrian Egleston!" she cried, in amazement. "Why Barbara, you lucky thing!"

So, finding her fuller of sympathy than usual, I violated my vow of silence and told her all.

And, to prove the truth of what I said, I showed her the sachet over my heart containing his rose.

"It's perfectly wonderful," Jane said, in an awed tone. "You beat anything I've ever known for adventures! You are the type men like, for one thing. But there is one thing I could not stand, in your place-having to know that he is making love to the heroine every evening and twice on Wednesdays and-Bab, this is Wednesday!"

I glanced at my wrist watch. It was but two o'clock. Instantly, dear Dairy, I became conscious of a dual going on within me, between love and duty. Should I do as instructed and see him no more, thus crushing my inclination under the iron heel of resolution? Or should I cast my parents to the winds, and go?

Which?

At last I decided to leave it to Jane. I observed: "I'm forbidden to try to see him. But I daresay, if you bought some theater tickets and did not say what the play was, and we went and it happened to be his, it would not be my fault, would it?"

I cannot recall her reply, or much more, except that I waited in a pharmacy, and Jane went out, and came back and took me by the arm.

"We're going to the matinee, Bab," she said. "I'll not tell you which one, because it's to be a surprise." She squeezed my arm. "First row," she whispered.

I shall draw a veil over my feelings. Jane bought some chocolates to take along, but I could eat none. I was thirsty, but not hungry. And my cold was pretty bad, to.

So we went in, and the curtain went up. When Adrian saw me, in the front row, he smiled although in the midst of a serious speech about the world owing him a living. And Jane was terribly excited.

"Isn't he the handsomest thing!" she said. "And oh, Bab, I can see that he adores you. He is acting for you. All the rest of the people mean nothing to him. He sees but you."

Well, I had not told her that we had not yet met, and she said I could do nothing less than send him a note.

"You ought to tell him that you are true, in spite of everything," she said.

If I had not deceived Jane things would be better. But she was set on my sending the note. So at last I wrote one on my visiting card, holding it so she could not read it. Jane is my best friend and I am devoted to her, but she has no scruples about reading what is not meant for her. I said:

"Dear Mr. Egleston: I think the play is perfectly wonderful. And you are perfectly splendid in it. It is perfectly terrible that it is going to stop.

"(Signed) The girl of the rose."

I know that this seems bold. But I did not feel bold, dear Dairy. It was such a letter as any one might read, and contained nothing compromising. Still, I daresay I should not have written it. But "out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh."

I was shaking so much that I could not give it to the usher. But Jane did. However, I had sealed it up in an envelope.

Now comes the real surprise, dear Dairy. For the usher came down and said Mr. Egleston hoped I would go back and see him after the act was over. I think a pallor must have come over me, and Jane said:

"Bab! Do you dare?"

I said yes, I dared, but that I would like a glass of water. I seemed to be thirsty all the time. So she got it, and I recovered my savoir fair, and stopped shaking.

I suppose Jane expected to go along, but I refrained from asking her. She then said:

"Try to remember everything he says, Bab. I am just crazy about it."

Ah, dear Dairy, how can I write how I felt when being led to him. The entire scene is engraved on my soul. I, with my very heart in my eyes, in spite of my efforts to seem cool and collected. He, in front of his mirror, drawing in the lines of starvation around his mouth for the next scene, while on his poor feet a valet put the raged shoes of Act II!

He rose when I entered, and took me by the hand.

"Well!" he said. "At last!"

He did not seem to mind the valet, whom he treated like a chair or table. And he held my hand and looked deep into my eyes.

Ah, dear Dairy, Men may come and Men may go in my life, but never again will I know such ecstasy as at that moment.

"Sit down," he said. "Little Lady of the rose-but it's violets today, isn't it? And so you like the play?"

I was by that time somewhat calmer, but glad to sit down, owing to my knees feeling queer.

"I think it is magnificent," I said.

"I wish there were more like you," he observed. "Just a moment, I have to make a change here. No need to go out. There's a screen for that very purpose."

He went behind the screen, and the man handed him a raged shirt over the top of it, while I sat in a chair and dreamed. What I reflected, would the School say if it but knew! I felt no remorse. I was there, and beyond the screen, changing into the garments of penury, was the only member of the other sex I had ever felt I could truly care for.

Dear Dairy, I am tired and my head aches. I cannot write it all. He was perfectly respectful, and only his eyes showed his true feelings. The woman who is the adventuress in the play came to the door, but he motioned her away with a wave of the hand. And at last it was over, and he was asking me to come again soon, and if I would care to have one of his pictures.

I am very sleepy tonight, but I cannot close this record of a w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l d-a-y--

JANUARY 24TH. Cold worse.

Not hearing from Carter Brooks I telephoned him just now. He is sore about Beresford and said he would not come to the house. So I have asked him to meet me in the park, and said that there were only two more days, this being Thursday.

LATER: I have seen Carter, and he has a fine plan. If only father will do it.

He says the theme is that the world owes Adrian a living, and that the way to do is to put that strongly before the people.

"Suppose," he said, "that this fellow would go to some big factory, and demand work. Not ask for it. Demand it. He could pretend to be starving and say: 'The world owes me a living, and I intend to have it.'"

"But suppose they were sorry for him and gave it to him?" I observed.

"Tut, child," he said. "That would have to be all fixed up first. It ought to be arranged that he not only be refused, but what's more, that he'll be thrown out. He'll have to cut up a lot, d'you see, so they'll throw him out. And we'll have Reporters there, so the story can get around. You get it, don't you? Your friend, in order to prove that the idea of the play is right, goes out for a job, and proves that he cannot demand labor and get it." He stopped and spoke with excitement: "Is he a real sport? Would he stand being arrested? Because that would cinch it."

But here I drew a line. I would not subject him to such humiliation. I would not have him arrested. And at last Carter gave in.

"But you get the idea," he said. "There'll be the deuce of a row, and it's good for a half column on the first page of the evening papers. Result, a jam that night at the performance, and a new lease of life for the Play. Egleston comes on, bruised and battered, and perhaps with a limp. The Labor Unions take up the matter-it's a knock out. I'd charge a thousand dollars for that idea if I were selling it."

"Bruised!" I exclaimed. "Really bruised or painted on?"

He glared at me impatiently.

"Now see here, Bab," he said. "I'm doing this for you. You've got to play up. And if your young man won't stand a bang in the eye, for instance, to earn his bread and butter, he's not worth saving."

"Who are you going to get to-to throw him out?" I asked, in a faltering tone.

He stopped and stared at me.

"I like that!" he said. "It's not my play that's failing, is it? Go and tell him the scheme, and then let his manager work it out. And tell him who I am, and that I have a lot of ideas, but this is the only one I'm giving away."

We had arrived at the house by that time and I invited him to come in. But he only glanced bitterly at the windows and observed that they had taken in the mat with 'Welcome' on it, as far as he was concerned. And went away.

Although we have never had a mat with 'Welcome' on it.

Dear Diary, I wonder if father would do it? He is gentle and kindhearted, and it would be painful to him. But to who else can I turn in my extremity?

I have but one hope. My father is like me. He can be coaxed and if kindly treated will do anything. But if approached in the wrong way, or asked to do something against his principals, he becomes a roaring lion.

He would never be bully-ed into giving a man work, even so touching a personality as Adrian's.

LATER: I meant to ask father tonight, but he has just heard of Beresford and is in a terrible temper. He says Sis can't marry him, because he is sure there are plenty of things he could be doing in England, if not actually fighting.

"He could probably run a bus, and release some one who can fight," he shouted. "Or he could at least do an honest day's work with his hands. Don't let me see him, that's all."

"Do I understand that you forbid him the house?" Leila asked, in a cold fury.

"Just keep him out of my sight," father snapped. "I suppose I can't keep him from swilling tea while I am away doing my part to help the Allies."

"Oh, rot!" said Sis, in a scornful manner. "While you help your bank account, you mean. I don't object to that, father, but for heaven's sake don't put it on altruistic grounds."

She went upstairs then and banged her door, and mother merely set her lips and said nothing. But when Beresford called, later, Tanney had to tell him the family was out.

Were it not for our affections, and the necessity for getting married, so there would be an increase in the population, how happy we could all be!

LATER: I have seen father.

It was a painful evening, with Sis shut away in her room, and father cutting the ends off cigars in a viscious manner. Mother was NON EST, and had I not had my memories, it would have been a sickning time.

I sat very still and waited until father softened, which he usually does, like ice cream, all at once and all over. I sat perfectly still in a large chair, and except for an occasional sneeze, was quiet.

Only once did my parent address me in an hour, when he said:

"What the devil's making you sneeze so?"

"My nose, I think, sir," I said meekly.

"Humph!" he said. "It's rather a small nose to be making such a racket."

I was cut to the heart, Dear Diary. One of my dearest dreams has always been a delicate nose, slightly arched and long enough to be truly aristocratic. Not really acqualine but on the verge. I HATE my little nose-hate it-hate it-HATE IT.

"Father" I said, rising and on the point of tears. "How can you! To taunt me with what is not my own fault, but partly hereditary and partly carelessness. For if you had pinched it in infancy it would have been a good nose, and not a pug. And--"

"Good gracious!" he exclaimed. "Why, Bab, I never meant to insult your nose. As a matter of fact, it's a good nose. It's exactly the sort of nose you ought to have. Why, what in the world would YOU do with a Roman nose?"

I have not been feeling very well, dear Diary, and so I suddenly began to weep.

"Why, chicken!" said my father. And made me sit down on his knee. "Don't tell me that my bit of sunshine is behind a cloud!"

"Behind a nose," I said, feebly.

So he said he liked my nose, even although somewhat swollen, and he kissed it, and told me I was a little fool, and at last I saw he was about ready to be tackled. So I observed:

"Father, will you do me a favor?"

"Sure," he said. "How much do you need? Business is pretty good now, and I've about landed the new order for shells for the English War Department. I-suppose we make it fifty! Although, we'd better keep it a secret between the two of us."

I drew myself up, although tempted. But what was fifty dollars to doing something for Adrian? A mere bagatelle.

"Father," I said, "do you know Miss Everett, my English teacher?"

He remembered the name.

"Would you be willing to do her a great favor?" I demanded intensely.

"What sort of a favor?"

"Her cousin has written a play. She is very fond of her cousin, and anxious to have him succeed. And it is a lovely play."

He held me off and stared at me.

"So THAT is what you were doing in that box alone!" he exclaimed. "You incomprehensible child! Why didn't you tell your mother?"

"Mother does not always understand," I said, in a low voice. "I thought, by buying a box, I would do my part to help Miss Everett's cousin's play succeed. And as a result I was dragged home, and shamefully treated in the most mortifying manner. But I am accustomed to brutality."

"Oh, come now," he said. "I wouldn't go as far as that, chicken. Well, I won't finance the play, but short of that I'll do what I can."

However he was not so agreeable when I told him Carter Brooks' plan. He delivered a firm no.

"Although," he said, "somebody ought to do it, and show the fallacy of the play. In the first place, the world doesn't owe the fellow a living, unless he will hustle around and make it. In the second place an employer has a right to turn away a man he doesn't want. No one can force a business to employ Labor."

"Well," I said, "as long as Labor talks and makes a lot of noise, and Capitol is too dignified to say anything, most people are going to side with Labor."

He gazed at me.

"Right!" he said. "You've put your finger on it, in true feminine fashion."

"Then why won't you throw out this man when he comes to you for work? He intends to force you to employ him."

"Oh, he does, does he?" said father, in a fierce voice. "Well, let him come. I can stand up for my principals, too. I'll throw him out, all right."

Dear Diary, the battle is over and I have won. I am very happy. How true it is that strategy will do more than violence!

We have arranged it all. Adrian is to go to the mill, dressed like a decayed gentleman, and father will refuse to give him work. I have said nothing about violence, leaving that to arrange itself.

I must see Adrian and his manager. Carter has promised to tell some reporters that there may be a story at the mill on Saturday morning. I am to excited to sleep.

Feel horrid. Forbidden to go out this morning.

JANUARY 25TH. Beresford was here to lunch and he and mother and Sis had a long talk. He says he has kept it a secret because he did not want his business known. But he is here to place a shell order for the English War Department.

"Well," Leila said, "I can hardly wait to tell father and see him curl up."

"No, no," said Beresford, hastily. "Really you must allow me. I must inform him myself. I am sure you can see why. This is a thing for men to settle. Besides, it is a delicate matter. Mr. Archibald is trying to get the order, and our New York office, if I am willing, is ready to place it with him."

"Well!" said Leila, in a thunderstruck tone. "If you British don't beat anything for keeping your own Counsel!"

I could see that he had her hand under the table. It was sickening.

Jane came to see me after lunch. The wedding was that night, and I had to sit through silver vegetable dishes, and after-dinner coffee sets and plates and a grand piano and a set of gold vases and a cabushion sapphire and the bridesmaid's clothes and the wedding supper and heaven knows what. But at last she said:

"You dear thing-how weary and wan you look!"

I closed my eyes.

"But you don't intend to give him up, do you?"

"Look at me!" I said, in imperious tones. "Do I look like one who would give him up, because of family objections?"

"How brave you are!" she observed. "Bab, I am green with envy. When I think of the way he looked at you, and the tones of his voice when he made love to that-that creature, I am positively SHAKEN."

We sat in somber silence. Then she said:

"I daresay he detests the heroine, doesn't he?"

"He tolerates her," I said, with a shrug.

More silence. I rang for Hannah to bring some ice water. We were in my boudoir.

"I saw him yesterday," said Jane, when Hannah had gone.

"Jane!"

"In the park. He was with the woman that plays the Adventuress. Ugly old thing."

I drew a long breath of relief. For I knew that the adventuress was at least thirty and perhaps more. Besides being both wicked and cruel, and not at all feminine.

Hannah brought the ice-water and then came in the most maddening way and put her hand on my forehead.

"I've done nothing but bring you ice-water for two days," she said. "Your head's hot. I think you need a mustard foot bath and to go to bed."

"Hannah," Jane said, in her loftiest fashion, "Miss Barbara is worried, not ill. And please close the door when you go out."

Which was her way of telling Hannah to go. Hannah glared at her.

"If you take my advice, Miss Jane," she said. "You'll keep away from Miss Barbara."

And she went out, slamming the door.

"Well!" gasped Jane. "Such impertinence. Old servant or not, she ought to have her mouth slapped."

Well, I told Jane the plan and she was perfectly crazy about it. I had a headache, but she helped me into my street things, and got Sis's rose hat for me while Sis was at the telephone. Then we went out.

First we telephoned Carter Brooks, and he said tomorrow morning would do, and he'd give a couple of reporters the word to hang around father's office at the mill. He said to have Adrian there at ten o'clock.

"Are you sure your father will do it?" he asked. "We don't want a fliver, you know."

"He's making a principal of it," I said. "When he makes a principal of a thing, he does it."

"Good for father!" Carter said. "Tell him not to be to gentle. And tell your actor-friend to make a lot of fuss. The more the better. I'll see the policeman at the mill, and he'll probably take him up. But we'll get him out for the matinee. And watch the evening papers."

It was then that a terrible thought struck me. What if Adrian considered it beneath his profession to advertize, even if indirectly? What if he preferred the failure of Miss Everett's cousin's play to a bruise on the eye? What, in short, if he refused?

Dear Dairy, I was stupified. I knew not which way to turn. For men are not like women, who are dependable and anxious to get along, and will sacrifice anything for success. No, men are likely to turn on the ones they love best, if the smallest things do not suit them, such as cold soup, or sleeves too long from the shirt-maker, or plans made which they have not been consulted about beforehand.

"Darling!" said Jane, as I turned away, "you look STRICKEN!"

"My head aches," I said, with a weary gesture toward my forehead. It did ache, for that matter. It is aching now, dear Dairy.

However, I had begun my task and must go through with it. Abandoning Jane at a corner, in spite of her calling me cruel and even sneaking, I went to Adrian's hotel, which I had learned of during my seance in his room while he was changing his garments behind a screen, as it was marked on a dressing case.

It was then five o'clock.

How nervous I felt as I sent up my name to his chamber. Oh, Dear Diary, to think that it was but five hours ago that I sat and waited, while people who guessed not the inner trepidation of my heart past and repast, and glanced at me and at Leila's pink hat above.

At last he came. My heart beat thunderously, as he approached, striding along in that familiar walk, swinging his strong and tender arms. And I! I beheld him coming and could think of not a word to say.

"Well!" he said, pausing in front of me. "I knew I was going to be lucky today. Friday is my best day."

"I was born on Friday," I said. I could think of nothing else.

"Didn't I say it was my lucky day? But you mustn't sit here. What do you say to a cup of tea in the restaurant?"

How grown up and like a debutante I felt, Dear Diary, going to have tea as if I had it every day at school, with a handsome actor across! Although somewhat uneasy also, owing to the possibility of the family coming in. But it did not and I had a truly happy hour, not at all spoiled by looking out the window and seeing Jane going by, with her eyes popping out, and walking very slowly so I would invite her to come in.

WHICH I DID NOT.

Dear Diary, HE WILL DO IT. At first he did not understand, and looked astounded. But when I told him of Carter being in the advertizing business, and father owning a large mill, and that there would be reporters and so on, he became thoughtful.

"It's really incredibly clever," he said. "And if it's pulled off right it ought to be a stampede. But I'd like to see Mr. Brooks. We can't have it fail, you know." He leaned over the table. "It's straight goods, is it, Miss er-Barbara? There's nothing phoney about it?"

"Phoney!" I said, drawing back. "Certainly not."

He kept on leaning over the table.

"I wonder," he said, "what makes you so interested in the play?"

Oh, Diary, Diary!

And just then I looked up, and the adventuress was staring in the door at me with the meanest look on her face.

I draw a veil over the remainder of our happy hour. Suffice it to say that he considers me exactly the type he finds most attractive, and that he does not consider my nose too short. We had a long dispute about this. He thinks I am wrong and says I am not an aquiline type. He says I am romantic and of a loving disposition. Also somewhat reckless, and he gave me good advice about doing what my family consider for my good, at least until I come out.

But our talk was all too short, for a fat man with three rings on came in, and sat down with us, and ordered a whiskey and soda. My blood turned cold, for fear some one I knew would come in and see me sitting there in a drinking party.

And my blood was right to turn cold. For, just as he had told the manager about the arrangement I had made, and the manager said "Bully" and raised his glass to drink to me I looked across and there was mother's aunt, old Susan Paget, sitting near, with the most awful face I ever saw!

I collapsed in my chair.

Dear Diary, I only remember saying, "Well, remember, ten o'clock. And dress up like a gentleman in hard luck," and his saying: "Well, I hope I'm a gentleman, and the hard luck's no joke," and then I went away.

And now, Dear Diary, I am in bed, and every time the telephone rings I have a chill. And in between times I drink ice-water and sneeze. How terrible a thing is love.

LATER: I can hardly write. Switzerland is a settled thing. Father is not home tonight and I cannot appeal to him. Susan Paget said I was drinking too, and mother is having the vibrator used on her spine. If I felt better I would run away.

JANUARY 26TH. How can I write what has happened? It is so terrible.

Beresford went at ten o'clock to ask for Leila, and did not send in his card for fear father would refuse to see him. And father thought, from his saying that he had come to ask for something, and so on, that it was Adrian, and threw him out. He ordered him out first, and Beresford refused to go, and they had words, and then there was a fight. The reporters got it, and it is in all the papers. Hannah has just brought one in. It is headed "Manufacturer assaults Peer." Leila is in bed, and the doctor is with her.

LATER: Adrian has disappeared. The manager has just called up, and with shaking knees I went to the telephone. Adrian went to the mill a little after ten, and has not been seen since.

It is in vain I protest that he has not eloped with me. It is almost time now for the matinee and no Adrian. What shall I do?

SATURDAY, 11 P.M. Dear Diary, I have the measles. I am all broken out, and look horrible. But what is a sickness of the body compared to the agony of my mind? Oh, Dear Diary, to think of what has happened since last I saw your stainless pages!

What is a sickness to a broken heart? And to a heart broken while trying to help another who did not deserve to be helped. But if he deceived me, he has paid for it, and did until he was rescued at ten o'clock tonight.

I have been given a sleeping medicine, and until it takes affect I shall write out the tragedy of this day, omitting nothing. The trained nurse is asleep on a cot, and her cap is hanging on the foot of the bed.

I have tried it on, Dear Diary, and it is very becoming. If they insist on Switzerland I think I shall run away and be a trained nurse. It is easy work, although sleeping on a cot is not always comfortable. But at least a trained nurse leads her own life and is not bullied by her family. And more, she does good constantly.

I feel tonight that I should like to do good, and help the sick, and perhaps go to the front. I know a lot of college men in the American Ambulance.

I shall never go on the stage, Dear Diary. I know now its deceitfulness and vicissitudes. My heart has bled until it can bleed no more, as a result of a theatrical Adonis. I am through with the theater forever.

I shall begin at the beginning. I left off where Adrian had disappeared.

Although feeling very strange, and looking a queer red color in my mirror, I rose and dressed myself. I felt that something had slipped, and I must find Adrian. (It is strange with what coldness I write that once beloved name.)

While dressing I perceived that my chest and arms were covered with small red dots, but I had no time to think of myself. I slipped downstairs and outside the drawing room I heard mother conversing in a loud and angry tone with a visitor. I glanced in, and ye gods!

It was the adventuress.

Drawing somewhat back, I listened. Oh, Diary, what a revelation!

"But I MUST see her," she was saying. "Time is flying. In a half hour the performance begins, and-he cannot be found."

"I can't understand," mother said, in a stiff manner. "What can my daughter Barbara know about him?"

The adventuress sniffed. "Humph!" she said. "She knows, alright. And I'd like to see her in a hurry, if she is in the house."

"Certainly she is in the house," said mother.

"ARE YOU SURE OF THAT? Because I have every reason to believe she has run away with him. She has been hanging around him all week, and only yesterday afternoon I found them together. She had some sort of a scheme, he said afterwards, and he wrinkled a coat under his mattress last night. He said it was to look as if he had slept in it. I know nothing further of your daughter's scheme. But I know he went out to meet her. He has not been seen since. His manager has hunted for to hours."

"Just a moment," said mother, in a frigid tone. "Am I to understand that this-this Mr. Egleston is--"

"He is my Husband."

Ah, Dear Diary, that I might then and there have passed away. But I did not. I stood there, with my heart crushed, until I felt strong enough to escape. Then I fled, like a guilty soul. It was ghastly.

On the doorstep I met Jane. She gazed at me strangely when she saw my face, and then clutched me by the arm.

"Bab!" she cried. "What on the earth is the matter with your complexion?"

But I was desperate.

"Let me go!" I said. "Only lend me two dollars for a taxi and let me go. Something horrible has happened."

She gave me ninety cents, which was all she had, and I rushed down the street, followed by her piercing gaze.

Although realizing that my life, at least the part of it pertaining to sentiment, was over, I knew that, single or married, I must find him. I could not bare to think that I, in my desire to help, had ruined Miss Everett's cousin's play. Luckily I got a taxi at the corner, and I ordered it to drive to the mill. I sank back, bathed in hot perspiration, and on consulting my bracelet watch found I had but twenty five minutes until the curtain went up.

I must find him, but where and how! I confess for a moment that I doubted my own father, who can be very fierce on occasion. What if, maddened by his mistake about Beresford, he had, on being approached by Adrian, been driven to violence? What if, in my endeavor to help one who was unworthy, I had led my poor paternal parent into crime?

Hell is paved with good intentions. SAMUEL JOHNSTON.

On driving madly into the mill yard, I suddenly remembered that it was Saturday and a half holiday. The mill was going, but the offices were closed. Father, then, was immured in the safety of his club, and could not be reached except by pay telephone. And the taxi was now ninety cents.

I got out, and paid the man. I felt very dizzy and queer, and was very thirsty, so I went to the hydrant in the yard and got a drink of water. I did not as yet suspect measles, but laid it all to my agony of mind.

Having thus refreshed myself, I looked about, and saw the yard policeman, a new one who did not know me, as I am away at school most of the time, and the family is not expected to visit the mill, because of dirt and possible accidents.

I approached him, however, and he stood still and stared at me.

"Officer" I said, in my most dignified tones. "I am looking for a-for a gentleman who came here this morning to look for work."

"There was about two hundred lined up here this morning, Miss," he said. "Which one would it be, now?"

How my heart sank!

"About what time would he be coming?" he said. "Things have been kind of mixed-up around here today, owing to a little trouble this morning. But perhaps I'll remember him."

But, although Adrian is of an unusual type, I felt that I could not describe him, besides having a terrible headache. So I asked if he would lend me carfare, which he did with a strange look.

"You're not feeling sick, Miss, are you?" he said. But I could not stay to converse, as it was then time for the curtain to go up, and still no Adrian.

I had but one refuge in mind, Carter Brooks, and to him I fled on the wings of misery in the street car. I burst into his advertizing office like a fury.

"Where is he?" I demanded. "Where have you and your plotting hidden him?"

"Who? Beresford?" he asked in a placid manner. "He is at his hotel, I believe, putting beefsteak on a bad eye. Believe me, Bab--"

"Beresford!" I cried, in scorn and wretchedness. "What is he to me? Or his eye either? I refer to Mr. Egleston. It is time for the curtain to go up now, and unless he has by this time returned, there can be no performance."

"Look here," Carter said suddenly, "you look awfully queer, Bab. Your face--"

I stamped my foot.

"What does my face matter?" I demanded. "I no longer care for him, but I have ruined Miss Everett's cousin's play unless he turns up. Am I to be sent to Switzerland with that on my soul?"

"Switzerland!" he said slowly. "Why, Bab, they're not going to do that, are they? I-I don't want you so far away."

Dear Dairy, I am unsuspicious by nature, believing all mankind to be my friends until proven otherwise. But there was a gloating look in Carter Brooks' eyes as they turned on me.

"Carter!" I said, "you know where he is and you will not tell me. You WISH to ruin him."

I was about to put my hand on his arm, but he drew away.

"Look here," he said. "I'll tell you something, but please keep back. Because you look like smallpox to me. I was at the mill this morning. I do not know anything about your actor-friend. He's probably only been run over or something. But I saw Beresford going in, and I-well, I suggested that he'd better walk in on your father or he wouldn't get in. It worked, Bab. HOW IT DID WORK! He went in and said he had come to ask your father for something, and your father blew up by saying that he knew about it, but that the world only owed a living to the man who would hustle for it, and that he would not be forced to take any one he did not want.

"And in two minutes Beresford hit him, and got a response. It was a million dollars worth."

So he babbled on. But what were his words to me?

Dear Diary, I gave no thought to the smallpox he had mentioned, although fatal to the complexion. Or to the fight at the mill. I heard only Adrian's possible tragic fate. Suddenly I collapsed, and asked for a drink of water, feeling horrible, very wobbly and unable to keep my knees from bending.

And the next thing I remember is father taking me home, and Adrian's fate still a deep mystery, and remaining such, while I had a warm sponge to bring out the rest of the rash, followed by a sleep-it being measles and not smallpox.

Oh, Dear Diary, what a story I learned when having wakened and feeling better, my father came tonight and talked to me from the doorway, not being allowed in.

Adrian had gone to the mill, and father, having thrown Beresford out and asserted his principals, had not thrown him out, BUT HAD GIVEN HIM A JOB IN THE MILL. And the Policeman had given him no chance to escape, which he attempted. He was dragged to the shell plant and there locked in, because of spies. The plant is under military guard.

And there he had been compelled to drag a wheelbarrow back and forth containing charcoal for a small furnace, for hours!

Even when Carter found him he could not be released, as father was in hiding from reporters, and would not go to the telephone or see callers.

He labored until 10 p.m., while the theater remained dark, and people got their money back.

I have ruined him. I have also ruined Miss Everett's cousin.

* * *

The nurse is still asleep. I think I will enter a hospital. My career is ended, my life is blasted.

I reach under the mattress and draw out the picture of him who today I have ruined, compelling him to do manual labor for hours, although unaccustomed to it. He is a great actor, and I believe has a future. But my love for him is dead. Dear Diary, he deceived me, and that is one thing I cannot forgive.

So now I sit here among my pillows, while the nurse sleeps, and I reflect about many things. But one speech rings in my ears over and over.

Carter Brooks, on learning about Switzerland, said it in a strange manner, looking at me with inscrutable eyes.

"Switzerland! Why, Bab-I don't want you to go so far away."

WHAT DID HE MEAN BY IT?

* * *

Dear Dairy, you will have to be burned, I daresay. Perhaps it is as well. I have p o r e d out my H-e-a-r-t--