You were not interesting last night, and Captain Morton was; therefore I sat out with him. But you should not have turned white and frozen in a corner. That sort of docile remonstrance in you rouses my aunt to a height of righteousness which nature itself cannot endure. I mean my nature. She says you are perfection, and that I don't deserve you. The maxims are unimpeachable; I agree to both. Go, if you like, or stay and be agreeable. I forgot to tell you that I am going to New York to visit Alice May, Captain Morton's cousin. Auntie is angry. Are you angry, too? Is all the world suspicious, and of Othello's complexion? If the primitive passions do rage just as furiously even though we speak Victorian English, tell me, what's the use of development? We are simply more trammeled and less frank. Having blown off the steam of my wrath, I'll condescend to say that the invitation from Alice just reached me, and that I have decided quite suddenly. Again, does it make you angry? Would you rather have me fettered to your wrist by a nice, neat little chain with your monogram on it and a jeweled pad-lock?
Francis Hume to Zoe Montrose
Angry because you are going away? My lady, heart of me, you know me better. You are free from everything but my love. It follows you everywhere, poor pensioner. It has nothing to claim, nothing to exact. Give it place in your suite, and be patient with it; for it would hide away rather than break in upon your mood. All your moods are like crystal bubbles, no more to be shivered than one of God's beautiful worlds. I love you; but you are infinitely sacred, infinitely precious to me,—above all, and above measure, free. Go, dearest lady; be happy. Think of me when the thought is an added pleasure, and then—come back to me.
Zoe Montrose to Francis Hume
Dear,—O, at moments like this I feel as if I could repay you so royally! You are a knight peerless. Remember, whatever comes between us, that I knew this of you. I shall always think of you with reverence. If you were here, perhaps I should be perverse and willful, and prick your offered hand with some tempestuous thorn; but I do meet you with one half my soul—perhaps with all my real soul. I send you a kiss. Come to the station if you like; but it will be to see the outer me, the worldly one.
To the Unknown Friend
She is gone. There is nothing to do for a week—a month, perhaps—but prowl about this dismal city, looking in the faces of men. At the theatres there is heavy comedy played by buffoons. So I stay away and watch my kind, and wonder what I'm going to do to make a man of myself. Write? What? Worldfuls of thought are creating themselves within me, but as yet they are only star-dust. I doubt if they will be anything more. There is a strange ache in my throat, a strange failing within me. Is it what children call homesickness? I heard little Ethel Wynne, the other day, talking about her first visit from home:
"They put me to bed, and I cried and cried all alone, and I was sick at my stomach, and I pitied me."
"Poor Mother Bunch!" said her father. "Homesick!"
And I believe I "pity me," too. I must be a weak sort of a fellow. All the men I meet are absorbed in something—horse—college—games. I am sick for the unknown. Not the camp. I believe the loneliness there would kill me now. O, why talk of it, for the sole use of spending myself on paper! I am sick for her—her! Heavens—whatever that means—how terrible it is to love a woman! Yet it seems so simple. If she loved me—oh, she does love me, but she has her moods. She is compact of fire and air and dew, and her path is like the swallow's. How should I find her?