You sail to-morrow. And to-morrow I go away for the summer: first to some friends, then further away to other friends, then still further away to other friends: a summer pageant of brilliant changes.
There is no reason why I should write to you. Your stateroom will be filled with flowers; you will have letters and telegrams; friends will wave to you from the pier. My letter may be lost among the others, but at least it will have been written, and writing it is its pleasure to me.
I was to go to England this summer, was to go as a bride. A few nights since I decided not to go because I did not approve of the bridegroom.
We marvel at life's coincidences: one evening, not long ago, while speaking of your expected summer in England, you mentioned that you planned to make a pilgrimage to see Edward Blackthorne. You were to join some American friends over there and take them with you. That is the coincidence: I was to visit the Blackthornes this very summer, not as a stranger pilgrim, but as an invited guest—with the groom whom I have rejected.
It is like scattering words before the obvious to say that I wish you a pleasant summer. Not a forgetful one. To aid memory, as you, some night on the passage across, lean far over and look down at the phosphorescent couch of the sea for its recumbent Venus of the deep, remember that the Venus of modern life is the American woman.
Am I to see you when autumn, if nothing else, brings you home—see you not at all or seldom or often?
At least this will remind you that I merely say au revoir.
Adrift for the summer rather than be an unwilling bride.
TILLY SNOWDEN.
June twenty-first.