The R.H.F. has a way of making common any subject she touches--even
the Taj and marriage--so I thought I would go to bed. As I said
goodnight I regarded attentively the friend, wondering much how anyone
could, of choice, accompany the R.H.F. in her journeyings. She is a
very silent person, large and fat and about forty, and her eyes are
small out of all proportion to her face, but they twinkled at me
in such an understanding way that I, generally so chary of offering
embraces, went up to kiss her. She is kind, but so large that being
kissed by her is almost as destroying as being in a railway accident!
Do I ignore what you say in your letter? You see, it is rather
difficult. Writing to a friend in a far country is like shouting
through a speaking-tube to the moon, and one can't shout very intimate
things, can one?
Let us be sensible. Don't be angry, but are you quite sure you really
care, and is it wise to care? We are so very different. You are so
very English, and I, in spite of a pink and fluffy exterior, am at
heart as bitter and dour and prejudiced as any Covenanter that ever
whined a psalm. My mind could never have anything but a Scots accent.
You are reserved, and rather cold; I am expansive to a fault. You are
terrifyingly clever; my intelligence is of the feeblest. You have a
refined sense of humour; the poorest, most obvious joke is good enough
for me. But this is only talk. I don't know that I am "in love,"--I
don't like the expression anyway,--but this I know, that if you were
not in the world it would be an unpeopled waste to me.
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