Rome,
April 2d.
Your dear cablegram came this morning begging my forgiveness. You have it, dearest, absolutely. Evidently somebody’s little conscience troubled her about her naughty message of April first. You’ll get, I fear, a pretty sharp letter which ought not, however, to offend you. Anyway the last cable made me happy, and yet another, telling me that the Senate had confirmed the nomination of the new Ambassador, made me happier still and my heart lighter than it had been for weeks. At least, someone is coming now.
But we’re doing the only thing to be done under the circumstances, and my Polly, I know, expects every man to do his duty, doesn’t she? I shall be home by May, you can be sure, even if I have to resort to the desperate measure of deserting my post. But that would be a hard step to take.
Yesterday I went about a bit—that is, this earthly shell of mine did, while my heart and soul were with you, dear—first to take luncheon with Peppi and to look at his curious copies of old masters. Do you know, he has even taken to painting them on wood, exactly like the fifteenth century—and his own Mona Lisa is uncannily like the one in the Louvre. I told him so and he looked queerly at me. Some had been boxed for sending and whose name do you think was blackly lettered on them? The Prince’s—and the address somewhere down on New York’s east side. Curious, isn’t it?
I didn’t stay long, being too distracted (my nerves are so strung up, they make me the worst company in the world). So I wandered home through the beautiful sunny streets, down past the foot of the Spanish steps where we used to meet, past the fountain and the flower-sellers. Write soon, won’t you?
POLLY TO A. D.
New York,