This is a great big house for just one woman, and I don’t see why I have to be that one!  I never was intended to be single.  I seem to even think double.  Way down in me there is a place that all my life I have been laying things aside in to tell some day to somebody that will understand.  I don’t remember a single one of them now, but when the time comes somebody is going to ask me a question very softly and it is going to be the key that will unlock the treasures of all my life, and he will take them out one by one, and look at them and love them and smile over them and scold over them and be frightened even to swearing over them, perhaps weep over them, and then—­while I’m very close—­pray over them.  I could feel the tears getting tangled in my lashes, but I forced them back.

Now, I don’t see why I should have been sentimentalizing over myself like that.  Just such a longing, miserable, wait-until-he-comes—­and why-doesn’t-he-hurry-or-I’ll-take-the-wrong-man attitude of mind and sentiment in women in general is what I have taken a vow on my soul, and made a great big important wager to do away with.  There are millions of lovely men in the world and all I have to do is to go out and find the right one, be gentle with him until he understands my mode of attack to be a bit different from the usual crawfish one employed by women from prehistoric times until now, but not later:  and then domesticate him in any way that suits me.

Here I’ve been in Glendale almost three months and have let my time be occupied keeping house for nobody but myself and to entertain my friends, planting a flower garden that can’t be used at all for nourishment, and sewing on another woman’s baby clothes.

I’ve written millions of words in this book and there is as yet not one word that will help the Five in the serious and important task of proving that they have a right to choose their own mates, and certainly nothing to help them perform the ceremonial.

If I don’t do better than this Jane will withdraw her offer and there is no telling how many years the human race will be retarded by my lack of strength of character.

What do men do when they begin to see the gray hairs on their temples and when they have been best-man at twenty-three weddings, and are tired of being at christenings and buying rattles, and things at the club all taste exactly alike, and they have purchased ten different kinds of hair-tonic that it bores them to death to rub on the tops of their own heads?

I don’t want any man I know!  I might want Polk, if I let him have half a chance to make me, but that would be dishonorable.

I’ve got up so much nice warm sisterly love for Dickie and Mr. Haley that I couldn’t begin to love them in the right way now, I am afraid.  Still, I haven’t seen Dickie for three months and maybe my desperation will have the effect of enhancing his attractions.  I hope so.

Still I am disgusted deeply with myself.  I believe if I could experiment with mankind I could make some kind of creature that would be a lot better than a woman for all purposes, and I would—­