Page:Pain--Stories and interludes.djvu/79

Rh a damnable nuisance. In speaking of college days to Maud, I must either tell the plain truth or run the risk that she will find me out from Thorn. And I can't use any of my old good things in talking to her, because she might quote them to Thorn, and he has heard them all before. How the brute would jeer at me for the repetition!

My diary, I think I should go mad without you. It rests me to write in your pages without effort. I need not mind being dull here. In my talk and my books I have to maintain a reputation. Here I can be dull and I can tell the truth. I feel to-night like a tired actor, glad to get into his dressing-room and be rid of his wig and make-up. (Mem.—Might elaborate that sentence a little, and then use it.) I will not write any more now. I am going to bed. I ought to do some work first, but I cannot. My brain is full of madness and Maud. If I am to get any sleep, I must go back to the old remedy. But I will never use it again after to-night.

March 30th.—I have just finished my sketch of the Birnleys, and I really do not think I ever did anything better in my life. I stopped at their place for a month last year, and I flatter myself that I have got the people, the house, and the furniture, with the accuracy of a photograph. I've just touched it up a little in places,