"DIANA."
He wrote:
"I'm in the designing department as draughtsman! Mr. Rivett's friend, Mr. Dineen, dropped in to have a chat with me. He's a very decent fellow.... You don't think that Mr. Rivett has inspired him to show me any unmerited favors, do you? It would make havoc of my present complacency. Try to find out.
"JIM."
She answered:
"Mr. Rivett isn't to be pumped. I tried it. I'll never try it again. Anyway, Jim, no favor can inject brains into a man; it can only stimulate what intellect he has. Don't worry about favors. Neither Mr. Rivett nor Mr. Dineen are the men to injure their own affairs by the incompetent service of others. You can be perfectly certain that you are worth what is offered you if they have anything to do with it.
"Why don't you fall in love with Christine? She's one of the sweetest girls I ever knew. I supposed she and you were on delightful terms once. Also, once, I thought she was inclined toward Mr. Inwood. But he seems to be monopolized by Mrs. Wemyss; and the poor child comes into my room in a forlorn sort of way—so white and limp these days that I'm wondering what this change in her means. Does it mean your absence? You'd tell me, wouldn't you? But I know you're not the sort of man to win a young girl's heart, and then coolly walk out of her life. It looks to me as though she had something on her mind. Dr. Billings has been here several times, and her mother is worried sick.
"That's all the gossip, except that the shooting is in full blast here. A number of men came up for it—the usual sort of men who shoot, except one. He's a Mr. Wallace, and very nice and a poor shot. He and I go out together sometimes, and he is forever making fun of himself and his perfectly rotten marksmanship, and he and I don't care two raps whether we get anything or not.
"Mr. Inwood is the saddest young man I ever had the pleasure (?) of trying to animate. Are all your friends as melancholy and temperamental? He haunts the terrace like a lost soul until Mrs. Wemyss annexes him. Christine does not seem to care for him; she doesn't seem to care for anybody these days.
"Colonel Curmew is a funny man. He has, apparently, devoted himself to me, and I have the greatest difficulty in getting away from him long enough to take a stroll with Mr. Wallace. Such a funny, strutty, sentimentally elaborate little man!—with a rather horrid habit of staring. But he's a crack shot, and popular here with the men.