Bab: A Sub-Deb | Page 7

they were ready to go
out.
"You don't mind if I write a letter, do you?"
"To whom?"
"Oh, just a letter," I said, and she stared at me coldly.
"I daresay you will write it, whether I consent or not. Leave it on the
hall table, and it will go out with the morning mail."
"I may run out to the box with it."

"I forbid your doing anything of the sort."
"Oh, very well," I responded meekly.
"If there is such haste about it, give it to Hannah to mail."
"Very well," I said.
She made an excuse to see Hannah before she left, and I knew THAT I
WAS BEING WATCHED. I was greatly excited, and happier than I
had been for weeks. But when I had settled myself in the Library, with
the paper in front of me, I could not think of anything to say in a letter.
So I wrote a poem instead.
"To H---- "Dear love: you seem so far away, I would that you were
near. I do so long to hear you say Again, `I love you, dear.'
"Here all is cold and drear and strange With none who with me tarry, I
hope that soon we can arrange To run away and marry."
The last verse did not scan, exactly, but I wished to use the word
"marry" if possible. It would show, I felt, that things were really serious
and impending. A love affair is only a love affair, but Marriage is
Marriage, and the end of everything.
It was at that moment, 10 o'clock, that the Strange Thing occurred
which did not seem strange at all at the time, but which developed into
so great a mystery later on. Which was to actualy threaten my reason
and which, flying on winged feet, was to send me back here to school
the day after Christmas and put my seed pearl necklace in the safe
deposit vault. Which was very unfair, for what had my necklace to do
with it? And just now, when I need comfort, it--the necklace--would
help to releive my exile.
Hannah brought me in a cup of hot milk, with a Valentine's malted milk
tablet dissolved in it.
As I stirred it around, it occurred to me that Valentine would be a good

name for Harold. On the spot I named him Harold Valentine, and I
wrote the name on the envelope that had the poem inside, and
addressed it to the town where this school gets its mail.
It looked well written out. "Valentine," also, is a word that naturaly
connects itself with AFFAIRS DE COUR. And I felt that I was safe,
for as there was no Harold Valentine, he could not call for the letter at
the post office, and would therefore not be able to cause me any trouble,
under any circumstances. And, furthermore. I knew that Hannah would
not mail the letter anyhow, but would give it to mother. So, even if
there was a Harold Valentine, he would never get it.
Comforted by these reflections, I drank my malted milk, ignorant of the
fact that Destiny, "which never swerves, nor yields to men the
helm"--Emerson, was stocking at my heels.
Between sips, as the expression goes, I addressed the envelope to
Harold Valentine, and gave it to Hannah. She went out the front door
with it, as I had expected, but I watched from a window, and she turned
right around and went in the area way. So THAT was all right.
It had worked like a Charm. I could tear my hair now when I think how
well it worked. I ought to have been suspicious for that very reason.
When things go very well with me at the start, it is a sure sign that they
are going to blow up eventualy.
Mother and Sis slept late the next morning, and I went out stealthily
and did some shopping. First I bought myself a bunch of violets, with a
white rose in the center, and I printed on the card:
"My love is like a white, white rose. H." And sent it to myself.
It was deception, I acknowledge, but having put my hand to the Plow, I
did not intend to steer a crooked course. I would go straight to the end.
I am like that in everything I do. But, on delibarating things over, I felt
that Violets, alone and unsuported, were not enough. I felt that If I had
a photograph, it would make everything more real. After all, what is a
love affair without a picture of the Beloved Object?

So I bought a photograph. It was hard to find what I wanted, but I got it
at last in a stationer's shop, a young man in