I said "Of course," hardly knowing what I meant; and he rejoined: "She won't leave me now, whatever happens—women are like that.... So perhaps, in the altered circumstances, it would be rather needlessly cruel to supply her with hotel evidence from Buda-Pesth."
I said eagerly that I was very glad, and hoped that he and Helen would learn to be very happy again, and so on. He soon interrupted me. He said: "You know, Hilton, you're too damned sentimental, that's what's the matter with you. You've still got the idea that I'm a very moral fellow at heart, and that all my talk is just a sort of cynical pose to cover up the gold underneath.... The fact is, you're born, in my opinion, to be a successful novel-writer. You've just got the right mixture of brains, sentiment, and conventionality."
We laughed together, and then he asked me to tell him all the news about Terry. I did so, and at the end of the recital he said: "He's an extraordinary puzzle. What possessed him to work himself to death in Vienna? What possessed him to preach at me like an infuriated missionary? What possesses him to do anything?"
"Something possesses him," I admitted.
"You reckon you understand him?"
"A little, perhaps."
"Then perhaps you'll be able to understand this letter. It reached me yesterday."
He took it from his pocket and handed it to me. It was on Valley Hotel notepaper and ran thus:
"DEAR SEVERN,—Thanks for your letter telling me the bad news. I'm no good at writing, but you'll know what I mean when I just say I'm sorry. If there were anything I could do, I'd do it, but there isn't anything. You've been right and I've been wrong in our ways of looking at things, and I can see that now, though I couldn't years ago when we argued about progress. Please don't ask me to come to the End House yet—I don't feel I could come. All you have done for me—and especially the chance you've given me of being here—makes me feel ashamed and a prig. Sincerely yours,
"TERRY."
Severn was smiling when I had finished reading. "Can you give me some or any idea what it's all about?" he asked, with a whimsical lift of his eyebrows.