“But why don’t you post them?”
“Oh,” I replied offhand, “they are experiments. It is another way of keeping a diary. Perhaps, after all, you may see them if you care to. They are merely studies in moods.”
I untied the packet.
“Here you are,” I continued. “Arthur Bassishaw, Esq., on the occasion of his engagement to Caroline. Good advice—but a little too late. It wouldn’t have been taken, anyway, from what I know of His Omnipotent Youthfulness. Never posted.”
“It might have been worth while to post it for the sake of reply,” Millicent returned smiling; “you’d have had something badly written, but very ardent.”
I shook my head.
“Bassishaw’s sword would be a good deal mightier than his pen,” I replied. “To see him in the throes of composition is a felicity I have hitherto missed. Now here’s another: to Caroline, on the same occasion. That, Millicent, cost me some trouble to write, and I am afraid it showed it—I have only one sister, you know. Unposted.”
“That was rather nice of you, Rollo,” she said.
“I should only have given myself away,” I returned. “Now this, to Mrs. Bassishaw, is one of two—the other one was posted. It was a hard alternative. I sent the usual nice thing; Mrs. Bassishaw would understand that. This”—I tapped the envelope—“would have appeared difficult to a widow still young, and still in the running with her own son.”
Millicent nodded. There were reasons for Mrs. Bassishaw’s conduct which her relatives approved and her friends condoned.