Circumstances force me to work—so I shall have to remain in your service—if you require me. I am unfortunately quite defenceless, so I appeal to whatever chivalry there is in you not to make it so impossible that I must again give in my resignation.
Yours faithfully,
A. Sharp."
————
I fell back in my chair in an agony of emotion—My darling! My queen!—whose very footprints I worship—to have had to write such a letter—to me!
The unspeakable brute beast I felt! All my cynical calculations about women fell from me—I saw myself as I had been all day—utterly selfish—not really feeling for her grief, only making capital out of it for my own benefit—. At that moment, and for the rest of the day and night, I suffered every shade of self reproach and abasement a man can feel. And next day I had to stay in bed because I had done some stupid thing to my leg in lying down without help.
When I knew I could not get into Paris by Saturday when Alathea was to come to the flat—I sent Burton in with a note to the shop in the Avenue Mosart.
"Dear Miss Sharp—(I wrote)
"I am deeply grateful for your magnanimity. I am utterly ashamed of my weakness—and you will not have called upon my chivalry in vain, I promise you.—I have to stay in bed, so I cannot be at the flat, and if you receive this in time I shall be obliged if you will come out here again on Saturday.
Yours very truly,
Nicholas Thormonde."
Then I never slept all night with thoughts of longing and wondering if she would get it soon enough to come.