All this holiday week, while the girls are away, I have been writing this theme, for literature class. To-day is New Years and I am putting in the finishing touches. I intend to have it typed in the village and to send a copy to father, who I think will understand, and another copy, but with a few lines cut, to Mr. Grosvenor. The nice one. There were some things he did not quite understand, and this will explain.
I shall also send a copy to Carter Brooks, who came out handsomely with an apology this morning in a letter and a ten pound box of candy.
His letter explains everything. H. is a real person and did not come out of a cabinet. Carter recognized the photograph as being one of a Mr. Grosvenor he went to college with, who had gone on the stage and was playing in a stock company at home. Only they were not playing Christmas week, as business, he says, is rotten then. When he saw me writing the letter he felt that it was all a bluff, especially as he had seen me sending myself the violets at the florists.
So he got Mr. Grosvenor, the blonde one, to pretend he was Harold Valentine. Only things slipped up. I quote from Carter's letter:
"He's a bully chap, Bab, and he went into it for a lark, roses and poems and all. But when he saw that you took it rather hard, he felt it wasn't square. He went to your father to explain and apologized, but your father seemed to think you needed a lesson. He's a pretty good sport, your father. And he said to let it go on for a day or two. A little worry wouldn't hurt you."
However, I do not call it being a good sport to see one's daughter perfectly wretched and do nothing to help. And more than that, to willfully permit one's child to suffer, and enjoy it.
But it was father, after all, who got the jolt, I think, when he saw me get out of the taxicab.
Therefore I will not explain, for a time. A little worry will not hurt him either.
I will not send him his copy for a week.
Perhaps, after all, I will give him something to worry about eventually. For I have received a box of roses, with no card, but a pen and ink drawing of a gentleman in evening clothes crawling onto a fire-escape through an open window. He has dropped his heart, and it is two floors below.
My narrative has now come to a conclusion, and I will close with a few reflections drawn from my own sad and tragic Experience. I trust the girls of this school will ponder and reflect.
Deception is a very sad thing. It starts very easy, and without warning, and everything seems to be going all right, and no rocks ahead. When suddenly the breakers loom up, and your frail vessel sinks, with you on board, and maybe your dear ones, dragged down with you.
Oh, what a tangled Web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive.
Sir Walter Scott.