"'I am thirty. I am afraid I shall be unable to make up my mind. When I was quite young I expected so much life and love.'
"'And now?'
"'Now I demand more.'
"'Would you not come to Dauphiné?'
"'To what purpose? Go to Saint Ismier for me some day. You will tell me when you return if the château has not been repaired, if the trees in the park have not been pruned or cut down, if my country of former days is not made unrecognizable. I hope it is not.'
"My good-by was so inadequate. The feeling of separation crushed the words on my lips. But she? English habits have accustomed her to these companionships, to these friendships, which are less common, more difficult in France. As a result of my consideration and her natural candor, I trust that ours may last for a long time."
"Saint Martin d'Uriage—July. A letter from London, confident and calm, too calm, calm like the summer days that I detest when not a leaf stirs in the dry air."
"August: Now her letters come regularly from the other side of the Channel. The appearance of English stamps is accepted as a matter of course. Is it not natural that I should have made acquaintances during my last voyage?"
"September: From week to week this strange friendship draws us closer together, despite the distance. And I am adapting myself to accept its unrealized desires and incompleteness, for the sake of the interest it adds to my life. In these September days whose changing freshness is at the same time an indication of decline, I feel I am unfaithful to her, in forgetting her for the gentle fall of the first leaves, which drop off without apparent reason for the distressing peace of the evening. Unless it be that without my knowledge she is giving a new interest to these impressions! Our love is growing, so that it forms a part of all our thoughts which scatter to the four winds, and is influenced by nature, which, by ceaseless activity, awakens our emotions and then focusses all our power of feeling. Have I written correctly: 'Our love'?"
"September 28th: Her letter is dated from Paris. She has left England forever. 'I am leaving ten years behind me,' she tells me—'the most beautiful years of one's life which have given me the impression of years of more mature age. Am I an old maid or a débutante? I no longer know. I see my youth behind me and I have made nothing of it. I have lived so much, and yet so little. I feel happy, care-free and weak at the same time. From this side of the water I lost all my self-confidence, and I find myself unsettled. I miss the English life. In France you do not know the joy of the open air, of independence, of the honesty of friendship. So we have given each other our friendship: do you know that that means much, and is a very serious pact? I fear that you did not realize it, and before we meet again I want to remind you....'