PART SECOND
EDWARD BLACKTHORNE TO BEVERLEY SANDS
King Alfred's Wood,
Warwickshire, England,
May 1, 1911.
DEAR SIR:
It is the first of the faithful leafy May again. I sit at my windows as on this day a year ago and look out with thankfulness upon what a man may call the honour of the vegetable world.
A year ago to-day I, misled by a book of yours or by some books—for I believe I read more than one of them—I, betrayed by the phrase that when we touch a book we touch a man, overstepped the boundaries of caution as to having any dealings with glib, plausible strangers and wrote you a letter. I made a request of you in that letter. I thought the request bore with it a suitable reward: that I should be grateful if you would undertake to have some ferns sent to me for my collection.
Your sleek reply led me still further astray and I wrote again. I drew my English cloak from my shoulders and spread it on the ground for you to step on. I threw open to you the doors of my hospitality, good-fellowship.
That was last May. Now it is May again. And now I know to a certainty what for months I have been coming to realise always with deeper shame: that you gave me your word and did not keep your word; doubtless never meant to keep it.
Why, then, write you about this act of dishonour now? How justify a letter to a man I feel obliged to describe as I describe you?