had come for his dance, I gave Whythe a little look that was not unfriendly as I left him.  I am afraid it was not even discouraging, but he seemed so mysterious and tragic and amazed that I should leave him at such a critical time that I thought a little look wouldn’t hurt.  I noticed, as we reached the door, that he was lighting a cigarette, and I knew his feelings would soon be soothed.  Man has no sorrow that smoking may not cure.

When we went home that night other people were in the automobile (I always see that that happens, knowing how Mother would feel about it) and Whythe, of course, had no chance to continue a former conversation, but his silence said a lot, and when he helped me out of the car he helped much more than was necessary and held my hands so tight he nearly broke my little finger; and the look he gave me was a thriller all right.  Every time I’ve thought of it since my heart has thumped so I know I must be in love, for all books say that is a reliable symptom.  Being proposed to is awfully interesting, and the reason I like it so much is that I am not apt to have many proposals of Whythe’s sort, as that kind has gone out of fashion, owing to golf and tennis and country clubs and so much association.  Plain statement is about all a girl gets nowadays, I am told.  Jacqueline Smith told Florine Mr. Smith had wired her he had to go to South America and asked her if she would marry him and go with him, and she wired back she would, and that was all the courting they had, though they seem very happy.  And a girl Jess knows said the man she married had asked her how he stood with her, that she stood all right with him, and that was the way they knew they cared for each other.  But I’m not that sort.  I am very romantic and I like a lot of words, which is why I am just crazy about Whythe’s letters.

If Whythe doesn’t make a success of law or politics he could certainly make a living writing letters of a certain sort.  He’s an expert at them and greatly gifted, and though I don’t say much in mine, thinking it safer to telephone than write, I do tell him that his are perfectly lovely, at which he doesn’t seem displeased.  He still begs me to marry him, and is so fearfully polite about it that I don’t like to ask him what he has to marry on, and so far as I know he has only nerve and his mother’s home.  I would not like to spend eternity as a maiden lady, but I’d much rather so spend it than dwell under the vine and fig-tree of the person who would be a mother-in-law to Whythe’s wife.  My heart goes out to Elizabeth every time I think of the fate that will eventually be hers.  Also it goes out to the House of Eppes.  When opposing elements meet something usually happens.  I’m betting on Elizabeth, but I may be wrong.

CHAPTER XIII