Equally true is the fact that Claude lacks the talent for companionship. With women, at all events. He has no use for a woman except as a plaything or a wife. And he does not want his wife to be a companion or a partner in his work. He wants her to be an ambassador plenipotentiary, representing him in polite society, and also a species of superior twentieth-century domestic scientist taking full charge of his creature comforts at home. I don't see myself in either role. Do you? Can you picture me as a sort of mother, nurse, housemaid, valet, cook and errand girl rolled into one?
All of which means that I'm not quite ready yet to handcuff myself with Prince Charming's household keys. "Hoity-toity," say you, "isn't this a bit like piling the evidence sky-high to prove that the grapes aren't sour?" Perhaps it is, but I think not. It is true that Claude hasn't asked me to marry him yet. It is true that whenever he is out of sorts with me he tells me that my reputation is damaged beyond repair and that I need not look to him to patch it up. It is true that when I smile at this he invariably insists with explosive fury that he will never, never ask me to marry him. He repeatedly insists that he will not. Still, I believe that he will. My problem is not what will become of me if Claude doesn't marry me, but what will become of me if he does.
As for my damaged reputation, I'm really not worrying about that. Say I have sullied my character. In one respect, a spot on a character is like a spot on a fine satin dress: hard work will wash all spots away.
But it stands to reason that things can't go on like this much longer. The little Sorbonne pension in which we are staying (as Monsieur and Madame) has its good points. And there are evenings when Claude, a little tired of all the famous and imposing Parisians he has met, expresses a longing to be quite alone with me again, and transforms himself once more into the Claude he was before we lived together. Then we walk along the Seine or drive on the wondrous roads towards Fontainebleau or Versailles. And these evenings are very delightful.
But they cannot be repeated forever. Any day I may take the step that I ought to have taken some time ago.
Write to me, Cornelia dear. Tell me all the news about the tenements. I suppose the Outlaws are as tame and bourgeois as ever. Does dear old Harry keep you fit and sylph-like with his rising exercises? And how is Lydia Dyson shaping? I see she has another serial in the Black Baboon (I found a copy in Brentano's here)—she must have coined bushels of money by it. I wish I could work as copiously on my diet as she does on hers of cigarettes and Haig and Haig. Charlotte Beecher, I fear, will be "through with me" as the cinema heroes say. Has she exhibited again or married Robert yet? Tell Robert I shall write to him as soon as I've done something he'll approve of.
Need I give further hints of my insatiable hunger for news? Don't let me continue to be cut by the postman. Write and write soon to
Your affectionate friend,
Janet.
III