I wish I was jelly-fishy in my feelings for people. If I were I could say of Cheneston, "I can't stick here! I'll float on." But I'm a barnacle creature where I love. I shall be Cheneston's girl even if I never see him again. My heart went from me when I first met him, and the doors closed after it and left a little hole. It will always ache, and I shall always know there is a hole where a heart should be—especially when I listen to wonderful music or see sunsets or little children at play.
I shall never, never have another heart to give away; some women have theirs on bits of elastic so that they can always pull them back and give them away again; a man sort of holds it until somebody else wins it, like a challenge shield or a football cup.
I gave mine entirely and unconditionally; I believe that time will cocaine the hole.
I look to time to do a lot for me in the healing and dulling line—all that the poets and the proverbs say it will. Time never fails you—when all else fails, you can always kid yourself you haven't given it long enough to perform the miracle.
I don't ever want to see anyone I knew in the old life. I feel that the Pamela Burbridge of those days is dead, poor thing! but she has a more exciting time than most defunct people, because every night I shake her up and make her live over again her enchanted halcyon days by the sea and at Cromer Court.
She lives in sunshine and happiness for an hour or two of memory every night, even if she has to die off while I go and do my day's work.
Life is really awfully funny and un-understandable. Why are we given feelings we've got to squash?
Are we big if we squash them and little if we let them grow?
I wouldn't squash my feelings about Cheneston.
I simply love them.