That was all I told him about the Rest money, but I said a little something about the picnic I thought I ought to give.  Everybody in town has given something, and, having accepted, I have to return, and the picnic will be the best thing for Whythe and Elizabeth.  I didn’t mention the ex-lovers to Father, of course.  Even to a father one doesn’t have to tell everything in life.

CHAPTER XXI

I haven’t seen Whythe alone but once since the night of the MacLean party, and then I stopped any tendencies that showed signs of being personal, and talked most of the time about the picnic which we can’t have until late in the month.  Every day is engaged up to the twenty-fourth.  Whythe tried to talk of Mr. Algernon Grice Baker, but I cut that out also.  Sarcasm doesn’t suit him, and some day he might be sorry.  The Superseder has gone, however, and every day Elizabeth passes Whythe’s office, and every day Whythe happens to be at his window at the time of passing.  They speak, but so far that is all.  I am sorry the picnic has to wait so long.  They are two silly children.  Their fingers aren’t in their mouths, but their heads are on the side when they see each other, and the thing’s getting on my nerves.  Almost any kind of sin is easier to stand than some sorts of silliness.

I wonder why I stay awake so much at night!  It’s very unusual, and I try my best to go to sleep, but I can’t sleep.  Always I am thinking of Mr. William Spencer Sloane and the things I would say to him if he were in hearing distance.  Not one line have I had from him for more than two weeks.  Not a card or a little present, which he usually sends from every place he goes to, or any sign to show he is living.  I got so mad when I realized he hadn’t noticed me for fourteen days that I couldn’t keep in things which had to come out, and, seeing Miss Susanna was sleeping the sleep of worn-outness, I got up the other night and lighted a candle behind the bed, and on the floor I wrote a letter that maybe wasn’t altogether as accurate as it might have been.  I wouldn’t have sent it the next day if it hadn’t been for a letter I got from Jess, but after I read hers I sent mine flying.

I haven’t cooled down yet from reading Jess’s letter.  I am not going to cool down until I see the cause of it face to face, and if Billy thinks it makes the least difference to me how he amuses himself or with whom he spends his time sightseeing he thinks Wrong!  I was going to tear up the letter I had written him in the middle of the night for the relief of indignations and because in the middle of the night things seem so much bigger and harder and stranger than in the daylight; but after I read the letter from Jess I added a postscript to mine and almost ran down to the post-office to mail it, for fear if I didn’t do it quick I mightn’t do it at all.  Ever since I sent it off I have been perfectly horrid, and I can hardly stand myself.