e
business. But these American girls think such a lot of themselves, that
they don't like being played with; and judging by the look on her face
this afternoon when she heard the truth, she was hurt and angry all the
way down to the quick. I shouldn't wonder if she refused to have
anything more to do with him, for all he seemed to have got on the soft
side of her father; and I must say, in my opinion, it would serve him
right if she did.

Good-bye, my child. It's late, and I'm tired. I don't care a rap how the
thing does turn out. It isn't _my_ business.

Your affectionate
Syb.

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HERSELF

_January 28_, Hotel San Domenico, Taormina.

I'm going to write it all down just as it happened, and see how it looks
in black and white. Then perhaps I can judge better whether I've been
very weak and undignified, and a lot of other things which I've always
been sure I never would be, under any provocation; or whether I've done
what no normal girl could help doing.

It's the sort of thing one couldn't possibly tell anybody, not even
one's dearest school-friend. I did promise Elise Astley that if I ever
got engaged, she should be told exactly what He said, and what I said,
but then I didn't know how differently one would feel about it
afterwards; besides, I'm _not_ engaged. I only--no, this isn't the way I
meant to begin. I am afraid I'm getting a good deal mixed. I must
be--more concise.

_Note 1._ If I think when I come to read this over that I have not
demeaned myself like a self-respecting, patriotic American girl, I will
tear this up and write a letter to--a Certain Person.

_Note 2._ If, on the contrary, I decide, on mature deliberation, that I
could not have acted otherwise, I will keep this always in the secret
drawer of my writing-desk, where I can take it out and look at it at
least once every year until I am an old woman--ever so much older than
Aunt Mary.

When Jimmy Payne suddenly hurled himself at me out of a cab (just as
Aunt Mary and I and a donkey were trailing disconsolately down from
Mola) and exploded into fireworks calculated to blow my poor Lightning
Conductor into fragments, I threw cold water on his Roman candles and
rockets.

All the same, though, I felt as if I had been dipped first into boiling
hot, then freezing cold water myself.