ve, however,
and though I went in with Mr. Keane, who had come for his dance, I gave
Whythe a little look that was not unfriendly as I left him. I am
afraid it was not even discouraging, but he seemed so mysterious and
tragic and amazed that I should leave him at such a critical time that
I thought a little look wouldn't hurt. I noticed, as we reached the
door, that he was lighting a cigarette, and I knew his feelings would
soon be soothed. Man has no sorrow that smoking may not cure.

When we went home that night other people were in the automobile (I
always see that that happens, knowing how Mother would feel about it)
and Whythe, of course, had no chance to continue a former conversation,
but his silence said a lot, and when he helped me out of the car he
helped much more than was necessary and held my hands so tight he
nearly broke my little finger; and the look he gave me was a thriller
all right. Every time I've thought of it since my heart has thumped so
I know I must be in love, for all books say that is a reliable symptom.
Being proposed to is awfully interesting, and the reason I like it so
much is that I am not apt to have many proposals of Whythe's sort, as
that kind has gone out of fashion, owing to golf and tennis and country
clubs and so much association. Plain statement is about all a girl
gets nowadays, I am told. Jacqueline Smith told Florine Mr. Smith had
wired her he had to go to South America and asked her if she would
marry him and go with him, and she wired back she would, and that was
all the courting they had, though they seem very happy. And a girl
Jess knows said the man she married had asked her how he stood with
her, that she stood all right with him, and that was the way they knew
they cared for each other. But I'm not that sort. I am very romantic
and I like a lot of words, which is why I am just crazy about Whythe's
letters.

If Whythe doesn't make a success of law or politics he could certainly
make a living writing letters of a certain sort. He's an expert at
them and greatly gifted, and though I don't say much in mine, thinking
it safer to telephone than write, I do tell him that his are perfectly
lovely, at which he doesn't seem displeased. He still begs me to marry
him, and is so fearfully polite about it that I don't like to ask him
what he has to marry on, and so far as I know he has only nerve and his
mother's home. I would not like to spend eternity as a maiden lady,