CHAPTER XIII
THANKSGIVING DAY
Thanksgiving day—and I have written nothing since the middle of October! But you remember I told you in the beginning that my journal might be, not so much a record of deeds as a setting forth of wishes; and my wishes all come to pass so speedily these days that there is no time to write them down.
To be honest, I had no idea of bringing my journal up here to Charlotteville with me, when I came for this Thanksgiving visit, for I thought of course Richard would be here all the time and I should not find a moment dull enough for me to sit down and write. But, as it happens, I am glad that the book was slipped into the tray of my trunk almost without my knowledge, else I should be spending a lonely evening right now.
Let me see—shall I begin where I left off—that sunny morning when I parried with Richard across half the state and lived to regret it? Or shall I begin with my entrée into Charlotteville and then jot down the past happenings as they come to me? The latter course strikes me as rather the better, then perhaps I shall not be tempted to give any one little occurrence too much space. Things seen in a sort of over-the-shoulder perspective are more likely to shrink into their normal size.
If I had snatched you up, my journal, the day that Richard sent me that exquisite chased card-case—a counterpart in pattern of his own sacred cigarette-case which I had once fingered with admiring reverence—I should have used up pages and pages of space, besides impoverishing myself in the way of adjectives. But I spent so many days dangling that card-case in front of me, as I stood before the mirror—using always my sparkling left hand—that before I had grown accustomed to the possession of it there came something even better calculated to take my breath away. A dull gold brooch it was this time, set with a green jade scarab—the little beetle bearing along with it a page of typed pedigree, showing the why and wherefore of its being. It in nowise detracted from the joy of possession, that these trinkets came in the nature of olive branches.
Yes, my sovereign was angry when I brought up the discussion of the book again, the Byron book, which I had promised to return, but with the proviso, under my breath, that I should be made to see the reason why first. I learned that he not only has the heart of a lion, but a little of that beautiful animal's kingly fury also when he is aroused. And he was aroused at what he termed my deception.
I made a clean breast of the matter the very first hour we were together again, knowing that I could make him listen to reason if I got him literally at arm's length. But I had to listen to some things, too, in that hour; coming off victorious to such an extent that he finally called himself every kind of high-class villain imaginable. Then, the next week this plethora of express packages.
So it seems that my idea concerning the warring elements in his character was not altogether wrong.