“σας ἀγαπω!”
She heaved a sigh of voluptuous pleasure, and began to write, “I love you! I love you! I love you ...” letting the words be accompanied by deep breaths of solace, as a very thirsty child may drink. And, having written the page full all but a tiny corner at the bottom, she inscribed very swiftly and in minute letters:
“Oh, Robert Grimshaw, why don’t you bring me to my knees?”
She heaved one great sigh of desire, and, leaning back in her chair, she looked at her words, smiling, and her lips moving. Then, as it were, she straightened herself out; she took up the paper to tear it into minute and regular fragments, and, rising, precise and tranquil, she walked out of the doorway to the rail of the ship. She opened her hand, and a little flock of white squares whirled, with the swiftness of swallows, into the discoloured wake. One piece that stuck for a moment to her forefinger showed the words:
“My own case!”
She turned, appearing engrossed and full of reserve, again to her writing.
“No,” she commenced, “do not put down this form of obstinacy to mental aberration. It is rather to be considered as a manifestation of passion. You say that Kitty is not of a passionate disposition. I imagine it may prove that she is actually of a disposition passionate in the extreme. But all her passion is centred in that one desire—the desire to excite concern. The cure for this is not medical; it is merely practical. Nerve treatment will not cure it, nor solicitude, but feigned indifference. You will not touch the spot with dieting; perhaps by ... But there, I will not explain my methods to you, old Ellida. I discussed Kitty’s case, as you set it forth, very fully with the chief in Philadelphia, and between us we arrived at certain conclusions. I won’t tell you what they were, not because I want to observe a professional reticence, but simply so that, in case one treatment fails, you may not be in agonies of disappointment and fear. I haven’t myself much fear of non-success if things are as you and Dr. Tressider say. After all, weren’t we both of us as kiddies celebrated for fits of irrational obstinacy? Don’t you remember how one day you refused to eat if Calton, the cat, was in the dining-room? And didn’t you keep that up for days and days and days? Yet you were awfully fond of Calton.... Yes; I think I can change Kitty for you, but upon one condition—that you never plead for Robert Grimshaw, that you never mention his name to me. Quite apart from any other motive of mine—and you know that I consider mother’s example before anything else in the world—if he will not make this sacrifice for me he does not love me. I do not mean to say that you are to forbid him your house, for I understand he dines with you every other day. His pleadings I am prepared to deal with, but not yours, for in you they savour of disrespect for mother. Indeed, disrespect or no disrespect, I will not have it. If you agree to this, come to our hotel as soon as you have read it. If you disagree—if you won’t, dear, make me a solemn promise—leave me three days in which to make a choice out of the five patients who wish to have me in London, and then come and see me, bringing Kitty.
“Not a word, you understand—not one single word!
“On that dreadful day when Robert told us that father had died intestate and that other—I was going to add ‘horror,’ but, since it was mother’s doing, she did it, and so it must have been right—when he told us that we were penniless and illegitimate, I saw in a flash my duty to mother’s memory. I have stuck to it, and I will stick to it. Robert must give in, or I will never play the part of wife to him.”
She folded her letter into the stamped envelope, and, having dropped it deliberately into the ship’s letter-box, she rejoined Mrs. Van Husum, who was reading “The Mill on the Floss,” on the main deck.