a cane the other day.
Not an ordinary stick, but an old gentleman's cane, with a gold head on
it. He said he saw it in a shop at Weymouth, where we stopped for lunch,
and thought it so handsome, he begged that I would accept it. His aunt
laughed, called him a ridiculous little boy, and advised me to have
"Thou shalt not steal" engraved on a gold band, with my name and
address. This was to soothe my _amour propre_; but, while I wonder
whether the thing really _is_ a gift suitable to my years, I long to lay
it across the giver's back. He gave it to me before Ellaline, too. What
an idiot I am to care! I can laugh, for my sense of humour hasn't yet
jilted me, if my good sense has. But the laugh is on the wrong side of
my mouth.

I feel somewhat better, having confessed my foolishness--which you would
have divined without the confession. The girl doesn't suspect. I enact
the "heavy father" even more ostentatiously than if I weren't ass enough
to prefer a role for which time and our relationship have unfitted me.
But it's rather curious, isn't it, what power one little woman can wield
over a man's life, even the life of a man who is as far as possible from
being a "woman's man"? Ellaline de Nesville pretty well spoiled my early
youth, or would if I hadn't freed myself to take up other interests. She
burdens the remainder of my young years by making me, willy nilly, the
guardian of her child. And, not content with that, she (indirectly)
destroys what might have been the comfortable contentment of my middle
age.

Women are the devil. All but this one--and she isn't a woman yet.

The dangerous part is that I am not as grimly unhappy as I ought to be.
There are moments, hours, when I forget that there's any obstacle
dividing Ellaline's future from mine. I think of her as belonging to me.
I feel that she is to be a part of my life always, as she is now. And
until I have again drummed it into my rebellious head that she is not
for me, that my business with her is to see that she gets a rich,
well-born, and well-looking young husband, not more than two-thirds of
my age, I enjoy myself hugely in her nearness.

But, why not, after all? Just for the length of this tour in the
motor-car, which throws us so constantly together? As long as I don't
betray myself, why not? Why not revel in borrowed sunshine? At Graylees,
I can turn over a new leaf; I need see very little of her there. She and
Emily will have plenty to do, with their soc