I said:
"Lord Ruddington doesn't like to think that you are ... well, in any sense a servant. To put it plainly, he wants to find you money, so that you can begin to lead a lady's life at once. It does him credit. But, Susan, of course you can't take money from him. Have you saved anything?"
Susan says she has saved thirty pounds. And nothing could be sounder than the quickness and firmness with which she decided that cash transactions with Lord Ruddington just now are unthinkable. Nor can anything be more indisputable than her unweakened devotion to myself.
"You can go upstairs and practise handwriting," I told her. "Come down in about half an hour, and I shall have some sort of a letter ready."
But two half-hours passed in vain attempts to produce an epistle proper to Susan's temperament and intellect. I've realized this afternoon that I can never write a play. I tried hard to think and feel as Susan must think and feel; but I could only think and feel on my own account. At the end of an hour and a half, the best I had been able to achieve was this:--
SAINTE VÉRONIQUE,
Tuesday.
Yes. You may call me "Dear Susan." But you must not say "My," until it is true.
You say it was good of you not to ride over the Heath to the station. If you had done it, I should have been grieved.
We had a smooth crossing from Newhaven, and we stayed till Monday morning in Dieppe. I like Sainte Véronique, and do not want to spend my month anywhere else.