New York.
"Amor mio di Lontano,
"I am in the city again the horrible, glaring, screaming city, all loud and harsh in the uncompromising July sun. How I long to-day for the shade of the closed Italian houses, the friendly, indrawn shutters, the sleeping silence of the empty streets, and, far-off, the cerulean sweep of the Mediterranean!
"And a new lover at my side! A brand-new lover, whose voice would sound strange to my ears, whose eyes I had not fathomed, whose feelings I did not understand, whose thoughts I could only vaguely and wrongly guess at, whose nerves would respond strangely, like an unknown instrument, to the shy touch of my hand.
"Your letter is brought to me. Written at the Hotel Bellevue, Andermatt. Andermatt! How cool and buoyant and scintillant it sounds. It falls on my heart like a snowflake in the humid heat of this town.
"I have opened the letter. What? Only three words!
"Again: 'Come at once.' Again the words, with their brief, irresistible imperiousness, thrill my lazy soul.
"If you write it a third time ... by all that is sweet and unlikely, I shall come!
"Will you be glad? Will you kiss my white hands gratefully? Shall we be simple and absurd and happy? Or shall we fence and be brilliant, antagonistic, keen-witted? No matter! No matter! The fever of my heart will be stilled. My eyes will see you and be satisfied."