“I once sued a descendant of an Irish king for one hundred dollars. I thought the fellow could not evade the facts, but when he got into the stand he lied a hole through a stone-wall. If you wish a sample of a high-class liar, get a weak creature on the wrong side of a law-suit and then watch him wiggle. My friend was of people who fancy themselves of superior clay, and yet he lied—lied confusedly—to beat one, who had befriended him, out of one hundred dollars. Imagine a man being admonished by a judge to remember he was on his oath! Is such humiliation worth the privilege of cheating a friend out of one hundred dollars?”
My mind keeps playing upon Charlie Lien. I did not meet him to-day. It is so humiliating to think he does not seem to care. As I passed the Henry-the-Eighth to-day, I felt I would like a glass of wine and a cigarette, my nerves seem to demand them.
[3] Possibly Elsie might have spelt this word differently.
January 7th.
I have seen Charlie Lien. I have had lunch with him. I am the most wretched of girls—women. I am a woman. I have developed in the last ten days.
But did a more inconsistent girl, woman or child ever live? I am consistent only in my inconsistency. Battledore-shuttlecock. Hither and thither I am bounced like a weak, feathery thing. One impulse throws me against my conscience, and then I rebound. And then another whim, inclination, impulse, instinct, or what-not, sends me off again. Happiness can be found only in contentment! I am far from contented, I am far from happy.
After all what does it matter? One dissolute person more or less in the world cannot matter, and dear, old Dad will not live long, and Uncle and Mumsie will not feel more than sorry—very sorry. Eternity is so very hard to conceive of, forever and ever and ever. I have felt remorse, just enough to understand or feel how its quintessence might well be hell. And yet, there are so many worse than Elsie Travers. May I not suffer as bravely as they?
This morning’s mail brought a letter from Charlie, so I lied to Mumsie and came away,—same story, an invitation from Hannah Smart. With Charlie I was happy, or shall I say excited. But as I walked home, reaction set in. Charlie Lien is an evil influence, against which my inherent sense of rightness revolts. Calm analysis tells me that social ambition is passing from me. What is supplanting it? I do not know. But I know what it is to which I cling—the real and tangible pride of ancestry—which Uncle and Mr. Bang say is loyalty. Surely ancestor-worship is a comprehensive virtue—better than social-climbing. It is the rock to which I hold, the rock to which I shall continue to cling.
I told Charlie we were going to Ottawa. He told me his mother was taking Mabel to Norway House on Norway Lake for three weeks. At this information I felt relieved.
January 8th.