I am naturaly sweet in disposition, but to call me a good girl and
remind me of last Xmas holadays was too much. My natural firmness came
to the front.
"Certainly NOT," I said.
"You needn't stick your lip out at me, Miss Bab, that was only giving
you a chance, and forgetting my Duty to help you, not to mention
probably losing my place when the Familey finds out."
"Finds out what?"
"What you've been up to, the stage, and writing plays, and now liquor
and tobacco!"
Now I may be at fault in the Narative that follows. But I ask the school
if this was fair treatment. I had returned to my home full of high
Ideals, only to see them crushed beneath the heal of domestic tyranny.
Necessity is the argument of tyrants;
it is the creed of slaves.
William Pitt.
How true are these immortal words.
It was with a firm countenance but a sinking heart that I saw Hannah
leave the room. I had come home inspired with lofty Ambition, and it
had ended thus. Heart-broken, I wandered to the bedside, and let my eyes
fall on the Suitcase, the container of all my woe.
Well, I was surprised, all right. It was not and never had been mine.
Instead of my blue serge sailor suit and my ROBE DE NUIT and kimona
etc., it contained a checked gentleman's suit, a mussed shirt and a cap.
At first I was merely astonished. Then a sense of loss overpowered me.
I suffered. I was prostrated with grief. Not that I cared a Rap for
the clothes I'd lost, being most of them to small and patched here and
there. But I had lost the plot of my Play. My Career was gone.
I was undone.
It may be asked what has this Recitle to do with the account of meeting
a Celebrity. I reply that it has a great deal to do with it. A bare
recitle of a meeting may be News, but it is not Art.
A theme consists of Introduction, Body and Conclusion.
This is still the Introduction.
When I was at last revived enough to think I knew what had happened. The
young man who took the Cinder out of my eye had come to sit beside
me, which I consider was merely kindness on his part and nothing like
Flirting, and he had brought his Suitcase over, and they had got mixed
up. But I knew the Familey would call it Flirting, and not listen to a
word I said.
A madness siezed me. Now that everything is over, I realize that it was
madness. But "there is a divinity that shapes our ends etc." It was to
be. It was Karma, or Kismet, or whatever the word is. It was written in
the Book of Fate that I was to go ahead, and wreck my life, and generaly
ruin everything.