wed?_ Then it's still as wild as ever underneath? I'm afraid it is.
Oh, dear!

"Phil and Ambo really are captains of their souls though, so far as
things in general let them be. _Things in general_--what a funny name
for God! But isn't God just a short solemn name for things in general?
There I go again. Phil says I'm always taking God's name in vain. He
thinks I lack reverence. I don't, really. What I lack is--reticence.
That's different--isn't it, Ambo?"

* * * * *

The above extracts date back a little. The following were jotted early
in November, 1913, not long after our return from overseas.

* * * * *

"This is growing serious, Susan Blake. Phil has asked you to marry him,
and says he needs you. Ditto Maltby; only he says he wants you. Which,
too obviously, he does. Poor Maltby--imagine his trying to stoop so low
as matrimony, even to conquer! As for Ambo--Ambo says nothing, bless
him--but I think he wants and needs you most of all. Well, Susan?"

* * * * *

"Jimmy's back. I saw him yesterday. He didn't know me."

"Sex is a miserable nuisance. It muddles things--interferes with honest
human values. It's just Nature making fools of us for her own private
ends. These are not pretty sentiments for a young girl, Susan Blake!"

* * * * *

"Speak up, Susan--clear the air! You are living here under false
pretenses. If you can't manage to feel like Ambo's daughter--you
oughtn't to stay."

III

It was perhaps when reticent Phil finally spoke to me of his love for
Susan that I first fully realized my own predicament--a most unpleasant
discovery; one which I determined should never interfere with Susan's
peace of mind or with the possible chances of other, more eligible, men.
As Susan's guardian, I could not for a moment countenance her receiving
more than friendly attention from a man already married, and no longer
young. A grim, confused hour in my study convinced me that I was an
impossible, even an absurd, _parti_. This conviction brought with it
pain so sharp, so nearly unendurable, that I wondered in my weakness how
it was to be unflinchingly borne. Yet borne it must be, and without
betrayal. It did not occur to me, in my mature folly, that I was
already, and had for long been, self-betrayed.

"Steady, you old fool!" whispered my familiar demon. "This isn't going
to be child's pl