I hope you will not think that I am taking myself too seriously, or that I am unthankful for the trouble you take in writing such kind and open and lively letters. But (now that I have your photograph and know so much more about you) I am conscious of a desire for a week or so of detachment from details. I feel that I would like to go about my ordinary life until some light breaks on me suddenly and of its own accord. The more I deliberately seek light, the more it mocks and eludes me. I suppose the reason is that no amount of steadily "making up" one's mind can suffice instead of a free involuntary motion of the heart.
As you wrote to me on Monday, you would not in any case be writing again till Monday next. I like to have your letters; but, if you postpone your reply to this until rather late next week, I shall have the better chance of deciding whether we ought to meet or not.
Yours sincerely,
SUSAN BRIGGS.
After lunch.
The letter's gone.
Susan says she likes it.
I liked it too, until it was dropped into the post-box. But, at this moment, I am vainly asking myself what had become of my brains while I was writing it. It's the un-Susanishest letter that even my undramatic pen has compassed. Think of Susan being "conscious of a desire for detachment from details!" I can as easily imagine her ordering a grilled ichthyosaurus for breakfast.
Still, it's gone. And now I shall have a week's peace.
It seems the Belgian people who have had Dupoirier's Villa de la Mer for the season left yesterday. Dupoirier is cleaning up the blue-and-white bathing-hut on the beach. He's going to give me the key, and, if I like, I can stay down by the sea all day, so long as the weather's fine.