May 2nd.
Lorna Dear:
It wasn't a bit hard to live through. The papers all came back by return mail, and all day Sunday I was in my attorney's office practising. It wasn't any more difficult than a Sunday-school lesson, and Monday morning at eight o'clock I was waiting at Liberty Hall for the hoped-for arrival of "The Greatest Common Divisor." At last he came, but with a sour expression, and not knowing what trouble he might have had before he left home, I tried to be patient.
We were ushered through the big court room into the judge's sanctum—asked how long I'd been here, and so forth and so fifth—then the comical question: "Do you expect to make Sioux Falls your home?" and the threadbare reply: "I have made no plans for the future," when all the time I had my I. C. tickets for the 3.30 train in my pocket. Do you know that was the first time I ever really perjured myself—like a lady—before, and somehow I wished awfully that I had let Carlton hold the tickets until after the trial. I couldn't even get my kerchief out of my pocketbook for fear the blooming time tables and tickets would show. Oh! the judge was terribly saccharine after he warmed up, and I adore him. Wish I had to get another divorce tomorrow—he's just like a dear old Universal Dad, and everyone loves him.
Well! dear, just to think of it. I've lost my hobbies! Isn't it great, and yet isn't it really sad! It means a failure in the greatest undertaking of a woman's life, and it also means that I issue forth—branded. I refuse to hold post mortems and am practising loss of memory. Now for the possibilities of the future. Possibility is the biggest word in the dictionary. Isn't it strange that a woman may live apart from her husband and do atrocious things, without wearing the tell-tale letter on her bosom, yet let a virtuous woman take the step for freedom, and, alas! she carries the scar as long as she breathes. But its worth it, dear. I have thought it all over and I repeat it a thousand times, its worth it. "I have written it upon the doorposts of my house and upon my gates, and I wear it as frontlets between mine eyes"—it's worth it!
I have worn crepe for my departed virtues for six years, but I throw it aside now and feel a new being whose glad unrestraint may carry her farther than she intended, just as prudery often lends a woman greater cruelty than she feels.
How clever of Don Willard to buy in Northern Pacific during the slump. He gets on with his sense of smell—he's a jackal who scents a carcass and gets there in time for a good bone.
While unpacking my trunk today I came across my wedding veil and it was all gray and dingy like the end of my honeymoon. How many sweet and tremulous illusions I folded into it on that first night and how soon afterwards did three-fourths of the world look like ashes to me. Dreams are harder to give up than realities, because they come back and gibe us even after they are dead and buried, while tangible realities stay fairly well hidden when we screw down the lid. I suppose you think that I talk like Old Man Solomon, but you know that the only serious thoughts I have are mushrooms of one minute's gestation.