DISILLUSIONED
Many times since making that promise to Miss Crewes I have wished I could take it back. I'd give a fortune to tell just one person in this world what Dr. Wynne did, but Barby says no. Miss Crewes has sailed and I can't reach her for weeks to get her permission, and under the circumstances I'd not be justified in breaking my promise. I must keep my word. But I almost know it would right a great wrong if I could tell, and it almost breaks my heart not to be able to do it. The way of it is this.
The French Relief entertainment took place last Saturday night, after being postponed four times, and I did the Spanish dance in my lovely green and gold costume. Esther got back Saturday morning, just in time for it. I was too busy to go over to see her, but she telephoned that she would be at the entertainment, and that I must look my prettiest. Some of her Yarmouth friends were coming. The posters had attracted people from all over the Cape.
My heart sang for joy all the rest of the day. Everybody says that I am at my best in that Spanish dance and look my best in that costume, and naturally if one is to do any shining one wants one's best beloved there to see it.
Babe Nolan was behind the scenes with me before the performance began. Jim and Viola were both on the program, and she was there to help them make up and prompt them if they forgot. It was the first chance I had to mention those letters of Esther to her, and I took advantage of it a few minutes before the curtain went up.
Of course I didn't tell her it was Richard whom I saw with the six letters written in the seven days of Esther's absence. I just mentioned the fact that I had seen them and added, "So, of course, she couldn't be engaged to that doctor she danced with in Barnstable."
Babe was standing with one eye glued to a peep-hole in the curtain, trying to see who was in the audience. She never turned her head but just kept on looking with one eye, and said in that flat, cocksure way of hers, "Well, that doesn't prove anything."
It made me so mad I didn't know what to do. It wasn't what she said so much as the way she said it that was so odious. There have been a few times in my life when I've been sorry that I was born a Huntingdon with the family manners to live up to, and this was one of them. Before I could think of an answer she added in that calm, I'll-prove-it-to-you-voice:
"She's down there with him right now, in the third row, next to the middle aisle, on the left."