re it is always afternoon!
Seems to me it will never stop being August. I'm dead sick of motoring
in present company, and so furious with Sir Lionel that the only revenge
I can think of is to marry him. Would that I could say, "Vengeance is
mine"; but it's still a bird in the bush, I regret to say, while in my
hand is nothing save the salt which I'm trying to sprinkle on its tail.

Curious feeling one has on a motor tour. I have the sensation of being
detached from my own past (good thing that, for _some_ ladies of our
acquaintance!) like a hook that's come out of its eye. The hook,
however, is quite ready to fit into any new eye that happens to be
handy, or dig out any eye that happens to be in the way. And that brings
me back to Mademoiselle Lethbridge. It really can't be good for one's
liver to dislike anyone as much as I have grown to dislike that girl;
but unfortunately I can't afford to despise her. She is clever; almost
too clever, for cherished, protected, schoolgirl nineteen. Would that I
could find a screw loose in her history! Wouldn't I make it rattle? I
thought I had got hold of one, through the Tyndals, but Sir Lionel
wouldn't listen to the rattling, wouldn't let it rattle for an instant.
It is only the change of climate and English food that prevents his
manners from being (as no doubt they were in Eastern climes) those of a
Bashaw; and if he were one's husband he couldn't be more disagreeable
than he is at times.

Not that he means to be disagreeable. If he did, one would know how to
take him--or not to take him. But it is his polite indifference to which
I object. I'm not used to it in men. It's like a brick wall you're dying
to kick against, only it's no use. I don't take all the trouble I do
with my hair and complexion not to be looked at, I assure you. Why, my
waist might just as well be two inches bigger for all he notices! It is
too trying. And then, to see the way he looks at that girl, who doesn't
know enough about physical economy to make powder stick on her nose when
it rains!

It does me good to talk to you like this. Dick isn't sympathetic,
because he happens to be in love with the young female, and though he
occasionally abuses her himself, on the spur of a snub, he won't let me
do it.

Don't think, however, that I give up hope. By no means. I have heaps of
tricks up my sleeve, small and fashionable as it is, and lots of strings
to my bow. But I just wish one was a "bowstring" and round