Dear Enemy

I am, as usual,

SALLIE.

P.S. This is a recent portrait of the Hon. Cy drawn from life. The man,

in some respects, is a fascinating talker; he makes gestures with his

nose.

Thursday evening.

Dear Judy:

Sandy is back after a ten-days' absence,--no explanations,--and plunged

deep into gloom. He resents our amiable efforts to cheer him up, and

will have nothing to do with any of us except baby Allegra. He took

her to his house for supper tonight and never brought her back until

half-past seven, a scandalous hour for a young miss of three. I don't

know what to make of our doctor; he grows more incomprehensible every

day.

But Percy, now, is an open-minded, confiding young man. He has just been

making a dinner call (he is very punctilious in all social matters), and

our entire conversation was devoted to the girl in Detroit. He is lonely

and likes to talk about her; and the wonderful things he says! I hope

that Miss Detroit is worthy of all this fine affection, but I'm afraid.

He fetched out a leather case from the innermost recesses of his

waistcoat and, reverently unwrapping two layers of tissue-paper, showed

me the photograph of a silly little thing, all eyes and earrings and

fuzzy hair. I did my best to appear congratulatory, but my heart shut up

out of pity for the poor boy's future.

Isn't it funny how the nicest men often choose the worst wives, and the

nicest women the worst husbands? Their very niceness, I suppose, makes

them blind and unsuspicious.

You know, the most interesting pursuit in the world is studying

character. I believe I was meant to be a novelist; people fascinate

me--until I know them thoroughly. Percy and the doctor form a most

engaging contrast. You always know at any moment what that nice young

man is thinking about; he is written like a primer in big type and

one-syllable words. But the doctor! He might as well be written in

Chinese so far as legibility goes. You have heard of people with a dual

nature; well, Sandy possesses a triple one. Usually he's scientific

and as hard as granite, but occasionally I suspect him of being quite a

sentimental person underneath his official casing. For days at a time

he will be patient and kind and helpful, and I begin to like him; then

without any warning an untamed wild man swells up from the innermost

depths, and--oh, dear! the creature's impossible.

I always suspect that sometime in the past he has suffered a terrible

hurt, and that he is still brooding over the memory of it. All the time

he is talking you have the uncomfortable feeling that in the far back

corners of his mind he is thinking something else. But this may be

merely my romantic interpretation of an uncommonly bad temper. In any

case, he's baffling.