But where was I to work?
Fate settled that for me however.
There is no armour against fate;
Death lays his icy hand on Kings.
J. Shirley; Dirge.
Previously, however, mother and I had had a talk. She sailed into my
room one evening, dressed for dinner, and found me in my ROBE DE NUIT,
curled up in the window seat admiring the view of the ocean.
"Well!" she said. "Is this the way you intend going to dinner?"
"I do not care for any dinner," I replied. Then, seeing she did not
understand, I said coldly. "How can I care for food, mother, when the
Sea looks like a dying ople?"
"Dying pussycat!" mother said, in a very nasty way. "I don't know what
has come over you, Barbara. You used to be a normle Child, and there was
some accounting for what you were going to do. But now! Take off that
nightgown, and I'll have Tanney hold off dinner for half an hour."
Tanney was the butler who had taken Patrick's place.
"If you insist," I said coldly. "But I shall not eat."
"Why not?"
"You wouldn't understand, mother."
"Oh, I wouldn't? Well, suppose I try," she said, and sat down. "I am
not very intellagent, but if you put it clearly I may grasp it. Perhaps
you'd better speak slowly, also."
So, sitting there in my room, while the sea throbed in tireless beats
against the shore, while the light faded and the stars issued, one by
one, like a rash on the Face of the sky, I told mother of my dreams. I
intended, I said, to write Life as it realy is, and not as supposed to
be.
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