December.
Your cable telling me of your willingness to announce our engagement was received with inexpressible happiness. I did not realize that making known our secret would bring such a new joy into my life. It almost makes me burst from sheer felicity when people say pleasant things. Dear old Checkers sent me an engagement book because, he wrote, I was engaged! Beaming, round-faced Pan bustled in, with his red fez on one side, and his fingers strung with all his jewelled rings, to talk about you and my wonderful luck. He got as excited as I did, and we both rattled on at the same time. Then we went out to dinner and had a bottle of champagne. Up he got to drink our healths,—can’t you see him?—reciting,
“May your joys be as deep as the ocean,
Your sorrows as light as its foam!”
But poor Charlton! I went in to tell him of our engagement and he gave me the warmest congratulations. He doesn’t seem any better. Indeed, Polly, I doubt if he is ever going to get well. I shall hurry homewards as soon as possible, but I can’t leave him now. Pay no attention to your Aunt’s obstacles, my dear, if they threaten our love for each other, will you? Surely, surely, you will be true.
PRINCE BORIS TO POLLY
Moscow,
December.