I, at last, became determined, and chose the roof-garden at the Astor to tell him good-by, and perform the final operation.  First I tried to establish a plane of common citizenship with him, by telling him how much his two years’ friendship across the waters had meant to me, while we studied the same profession under the same masters, drew at the same drawing-boards and watched dear old Paris flame into her jeweled night-fire from Montmarte, together.  I was frankly affectionate, and it made him suspicious of me.

Then I tried to tell him just a little, only a hint, of my new attitude towards his sex, and before he had had time even to grasp the idea he exploded.

“Don’t talk to me as if you were an alienist trying to examine an abstruse case, Evelina,” he growled, with extreme temper.  “Go on down and rusticate with your relatives for the summer, and fly the bats in your belfry at the old moss-backs, while I am getting this Cincinnati and Gulf Stations commission under way.  Then, when I can, I will come for you.  Let’s don’t discuss the matter, and it’s time I took you back to your hotel.”

Not a very encouraging tilt for my maiden lance.

I’ve had a thought.  If I should turn and woo Dickie, like he does me, I suppose we would be going-so fast in opposite directions that we would be in danger of passing each other without recognizing signals.  I wonder if that might get to be the case of humanity at large if women do undertake the tactics I am to experiment with, and a dearth of any kind of loving and claiming at all be the result.  I will elucidate that idea and shoot it into Jane.  But I have no hope; she’ll have the answer ticketed away in the right pigeon-hole, statistics and all, ready to fire back at me.

I have a feeling that Jane won’t expect such a diary as this locked cell of a book is becoming, but I can select what looks like data for the young from these soul squirmings, and only let her have those for The Five.  I don’t know which are which now, and I’ll have to put down the whole drama.

And my home-coming last night was a drama that had in it so much comedy, dashed with tragedy, that I’m a little breathless over it yet.  Jane, and my mind is breathing unevenly still.

Considering the situation, and my intentions, I was a bit frightened as the huge engine rattled and roared its way along the steel rails that were leading me back, down into the Harpeth Valley.  But, when we crossed the Kentucky line, I forgot the horrors of my mission, and I thrilled gloriously at getting hack to my hills.  Old Harpeth had just come into sight, as we rounded into the valley and Providence Knob rested back against it, in a pink glow that I knew came from the honeysuckle in bloom all over it like a mantle.  I traveled fast into the twilight, and I saw all the stars smile out over the ridge, in answer to the hearth stars in the valley, before I got across Silver Creek.  I hadn’t let any one know that I was coming, so I couldn’t expect any one to meet me at the station at Glendale.  There was nobody there I belonged to—­just an empty house.  I suppose a man coming home like that would have whistled and held up his head, but I couldn’t.  I’m a woman.