"Well, I won't bother with that problem to-night; my head aches a little.
"Good night, Jim.
"JAPONETTE."
Diana finished her letter, sealed and stamped it, and kissed the superscription. She always did when she wrote his name.
Then she laid her aching temples on her arms and, leaning limply on the desk, thought about him.
Hers was a strange, sweet pride in him—a fierce jealousy lest he should not take the place in the world to which he was entitled, and prove himself every inch a man.
Nor did she pretend to hide from herself what his return among his own friends must ultimately mean. If the love he had offered her had not been totally extinguished by her light mockery and smiling insolence, then this return to his own set would do it ultimately. The standards that measured women there would be fatal to her; nor could he choose but apply them, sooner or later.
She knew this when she sent him back among his own sort. She realized perfectly that if any love for her survived her irony and flippancy—her airy but trenchant scorn—it could not survive very long when he came to his cool-headed and reasoning self, and looked around him at the women, and at the families and relatives of the women among whom he had always lived.
Already he had spoken of little Aliss Ellis—a mere child, of course—yet—yet it was a straw prophesying a change in the wind to her.
She knew; she had accomplished what she had desired. She had done this thing to herself, to her whole life, for his sake. What more could she wish for?