The other letter was from … her—clear, serene, full of such literary reminiscences as always dwelt in her busy little head.
"DEAR FRIEND:—
I wouldn't ask you: Why do I not see you?—you have not called for five days—I would wait quietly till your steps led you hither without persuasion or compulsion; but 'every animal loves itself' as the old gossip Cicero says, and I feel a desire to chat with you.
I have never believed, to be sure, that we would remain indispensable to each other. 'Racine passera comme le café,' Mme. de Sévigné says somewhere, but I would never have dreamed that we would see so little of each other before the inevitable end of all things.
You know the proverb: even old iron hates to rust, and I'm only twenty-five.
Come once again, dear Master, if you care to. I have an excellent cigarette for you—Blum Pasha. I smoke a little myself now and then, but c'est plus fort que moi and ends in head-ache.
Joko has at last learned to say 'Richard.' He trills the r cunningly. He knows that he has little need to be jealous.
Good-bye!
ALICE."
He laughed and brought forth her picture which stood, framed and glazed, upon his desk. A delicate, slender figure—"blonde comme les blés"—with bluish grey, eager eyes and a mocking expression of the lips—it was she herself, she who had made the last years of his life truly livable and whose fate he administered rather than ruled.