Once I got so desperate that I begged her to stay as a kindness to me, in order to keep an eye on those patently efficient and trustworthy Antoines. This indeed was the straw-clutching of the drowning, and even Mrs. Barnes, that rare smiler, smiled.
No. I don't know what to do. How the wind screams. I'll go to bed.
September 29th.
And there's nothing to be done with Dolly either.
'You told me you put your foot down sometimes,' I said, appealing to her this morning in one of Mrs. Barnes's brief absences, 'Why don't you put it down now?'
'Because I don't want to,' said Dolly.
'But why not?' I asked, exasperated. 'It's so reasonable what I suggest, so easy—'
'I don't want to stay here without you,' said Dolly. 'This place is you. You've made it. It is soaked in you. I should feel haunted here without you. Why, I should feel lost.'
'As though you would! When we hardly speak to each other as it is—'
'But I watch you,' said Dolly, smiling, 'and I know what you're thinking. You've no idea how what you're thinking comes out on your face.'