I could not finish.  Although married and forever beyond me, I could still hear his manly tones as issueing from the door of the Bath-house.  I thrilled with excitement.  As the curtain rose I closed my eyes in ecstacy.

“Bab!” Jane said, in a quavering tone.

I looked.  What did I see?  The bath-house itself, the very one.  And as I stared I saw a girl, wearing her hair as I wear mine, cross the stage with a Bunch of Keys in her hand, and say to the bath-house door.

“Can’t I do somthing to help?  I do so want to help you.”

My very words.

And a voice from beyond the bath-house door said: 

“Who’s that?”

His words.

I could bare no more.  Heedless of Jane’s Protests and Anguish, I got up and went out, into the light of day.  My body was bent with misry.  Because at last I knew that, like mother and all the rest, he to did not understand me, and never would.  To him I was but material, the stuff that plays are made of!

     And now we know that he never could know,
     And did not understand. 
     Kipling.

Ignoring Jane’s observation that the tickets had cost two dollars each,
I gathered up the scattered Skeins of my life together, and fled.

CHAPTER III

HER DIARY:  BEING THE DAILY JOURNAL OF THE SUB-DEB

January 1st.  I have today recieved this dairy 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 expencive), mashed
Turnips, sweet Potatos and minse Pie.

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

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 meazles and is quarentined in the infirmery.  And on Miss Everett’s couzin, who has written a play.

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

New Year’s resolution—­to help some one every day.  Today helped Mademoiselle to put on her rubers.

January 2nd.  Today I wrote my French theme, beginning, “Les hommes songent moins a leur AME QU A 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 develope in this atmosphere?