simple justice to an erring but attractive woman to remark that she
never said "I told you so!" to her husband.

TWO ON A TOUR

LOG-BOOK OF CHARLOTTE AMALIA CLIFFORD

S.S. Diana, January 21, 1918
On the way to the Virgin Islands

I engrossed the above heading in my journal shortly after we left the
dock in New York, but from what has occurred in the past few days I
think my occasional entries in the log-book are likely to be records
of Dorothea Valentine's love-affairs as they occur to her day by day,
and as unluckily they are poured into my ear for lack of a better or
more convenient vessel.

We are dear friends, Dolly and I. Her name is Dorothea, but apparently
she will have to grow up to it, for at present everybody calls her
Dolly, Dora, Dot, or Dodo, according to his or her sex, color, or
previous condition of servitude. Dolly is twenty and I am thirty;
indeed, her mother is only forty, so that I am rather her contemporary
than Dolly's, but friendship is more a matter of sympathy than
relative age, and Mrs. Valentine and I are by no means twin souls. As
a matter of fact, that lady would never have noticed me, the private
secretary of Clive Winthrop, a government official in Washington, had
it not been that, through him and his sister, I had access to a more
interesting group in society than had Mrs. Valentine, a widow of large
means but a stranger in the Capital. Clive Winthrop is a person of
distinction and influence, and Miss Ellen Winthrop, an old friend of
my mother's, is one of the most charming hostesses in Washington,
while I am in reality nothing but a paid scribe; the glad, willing,
ardent, but silent assistant of a man who is serving the
Administration with all his heart; but neither he nor his sister will
have it so considered. I almost think that Miss Ellen Winthrop, still
vivacious and vigorous at seventy, is ready to give up to me her place
as head of the household if I consent to say the word; but I am not
sure enough yet to say it; and because of that uncertainty I cannot
trust myself in the daily company of the two persons most deeply
concerned in my decision.

A sea voyage is the best thing in the world to blow away doubts or
difficulties; it also clears the air so that one can see one's course,
whether it be toward the north of duty or the south of desire.

My work for a long time has been to report intervi