And I am to hear all the bells, and to see the things I have always longed to see! Yet—and I haven't told this to any one but you, Roger Poole, the thought doesn't bring one little bit of gladness—it isn't London that I want, or England. I want my garden and my old big house, and things as they used to be.
But I am sailing fast away from it—the old life into the new!
So far we have had fair weather. It is always best to speak of the weather first, isn't it?—so that we can have our minds free for other things. It hasn't been at all rough; even Leila, who isn't a good sailor, has been able to stay on deck and people are so much interested in her. She seems such a child for her widow's black. Oh, what children they were, my boy Barry and his little wife, and yet they were man and woman, too. Leila has been letting me see some of his letters; he showed her a side which he never revealed to me, but I am not jealous. I am only glad that, for her, my boy Barry became a man.
But I am going to try to keep the sadness out of my scribbles to you, only now and then it will creep in, and you must forgive it, because you see it isn't easy to think that we are all here who loved him, and he, who loved so much to be with us, is somewhere—oh, where is he, Roger Poole, in that vast infinity which stretches out and out, beyond the sea, beyond the sky, into eternity?
All day I have been lying in my deck chair, and have let the world go by. It is clear and cool, and the sea rises up like a wall of sapphire. Last night we seemed to plough through a field of gold. The world is really a lovely place, the big outside world, but it isn't the outside world which makes our happiness, it is the world within us, and when the heart is tired——
But now I must talk of some one else besides my self.
Shall I tell you of Delilah? She attracts much attention, with her gracious manner and her wonderful clothes. All the people are crazy about her. They think she is English, and a duchess at least. Colin is as pleased as Punch at the success he has made of her, and he just stands aside and watches her, and flickers his pale lashes and smiles. Last night she danced some of the new dances, and her tango is as stately as a minuet. She and Porter danced together—and everybody stopped to look at them. The gossip is going the rounds that they are engaged. Oh, I wish they were—I wish they were! It would be good for him to meet his match. Delilah could hold her own; she wouldn't let him insist and manage until she was positively mesmerized, as I am. Delilah has such a queenly way of ruling her world. All the men on board trail after her. But she makes most of them worship from afar. As for the women, she picks the best, instinctively, and the ice which seems congealed around the heart of the average Britisher melts before her charm, so that already she is playing bridge with the proper people, and having tea with the inner circle. Even with these she seems to assume an air of remoteness, which seems to set her apart—and it is this air, Grace says, which conquers.
When people aren't coupling Porter's name with Delilah's, they are coupling it with Grace's. You should see our "red-headed woodpeckers," as poor Barry used to call them. When they promenade, Grace wears a bit of a black hat that shows all of her glorious hair, and Porter's cap can't hide his crown of glory. At first people thought they were brother and sister, but since it is known that they aren't I can see that everybody is puzzled.
It is all like a play passing in front of me. There are charming English people—charming Americans and some uncharming ones. Oh, why don't we, who began in such simplicity, try to remain a simple people? It just seems to me sometimes as if everybody on board is trying to show off. The rich ones are trying to display their money, and the intellectual ones their brains. Is there any real difference between the new-rich and the new-cultured, Roger Poole? One tells about her three motor cars, and the other tells about her three degrees. It is all tiresome. The world is a place to have things and to know things, but if the having them and knowing them makes them so important that you have to talk about them all the time there's something wrong.
That's the charm of Grace. She has money and position—and I've told you how she simply carried off all the honors at college; she paints wonderfully, and her opinions are all worth listening to. But she doesn't throw her knowledge at you. She is interested in people, and puts books where they belong. She is really the only one whom I welcome without any misgivings, except darling Aunt Isabelle. The others when they come to talk to me, are either too sad or too energetic.