She was dressed in blue silk pajamas and standing
by her bed with her hand on the light to put the room
in darkness, when she changed her mind and opening
a table drawer brought out a little black book—a
“Line-a-day” diary. This she had kept
for seven years. Many of the pencil entries were
almost illegible and there were notes and references
to nights and afternoons long since forgotten, for
it was not an intimate diary, even though it began
with the immemorial “I am going to keep a diary
for my children.” Yet as she thumbed over
the pages the eyes of many men seemed to look out
at her from their half-obliterated names. With
one she had gone to New Haven for the first time—in
1908, when she was sixteen and padded shoulders were
fashionable at Yale—she had been flattered
because “Touch down” Michaud had “rushed”
her all evening. She sighed, remembering the
grown-up satin dress she had been so proud of and
the orchestra playing “Yama-yama, My Yama Man”
and “Jungle-Town.” So long ago!—the
names: Eltynge Reardon, Jim Parsons, “Curly”
McGregor, Kenneth Cowan, “Fish-eye” Fry
(whom she had liked for being so ugly), Carter Kirby—he
had sent her a present; so had Tudor Baird;—Marty
Reffer, the first man she had been in love with for
more than a day, and Stuart Holcome, who had run away
with her in his automobile and tried to make her marry
him by force. And Larry Fenwick, whom she had
always admired because he had told her one night that
if she wouldn’t kiss him she could get out of
his car and walk home. What a list!
... And, after all, an obsolete list. She
was in love now, set for the eternal romance that
was to be the synthesis of all romance, yet sad for
these men and these moonlights and for the “thrills”
she had had—and the kisses. The past—her
past, oh, what a joy! She had been exuberantly
happy.
Turning over the pages her eyes rested idly on the
scattered entries of the past four months. She
read the last few carefully.
“April 1st.—I know Bill Carstairs
hates me because I was so disagreeable, but I hate
to be sentimentalized over sometimes. We drove
out to the Rockyear Country Club and the most wonderful
moon kept shining through the trees. My silver
dress is getting tarnished. Funny how one forgets
the other nights at Rockyear—with Kenneth
Cowan when I loved him so!
“April 3rd.—After two hours
of Schroeder who, they inform me, has millions, I’ve
decided that this matter of sticking to things wears
one out, particularly when the things concerned are
men. There’s nothing so often overdone
and from to-day I swear to be amused. We talked
about ’love’—how banal!
With how many men have I talked about love?
“April 11th.—Patch actually
called up to-day! and when he forswore me about a
month ago he fairly raged out the door. I’m
gradually losing faith in any man being susceptible
to fatal injuries.
