She's running a bar in connection with her tea table now, which is equivalent to putting salt on the tail of the social male bird. She can hardly believe that she's free, and says that it will take some time for her to realize "that there aint no beast." Isn't it strange that the most fascinating lover in the world can turn into the veriest beast within six months after he has hit you on the head and dragged you senseless into his Fifth Avenue home? Of course you're senseless or you would not have tied up.
Phyllis says that she has gotten out of the habit of decent food, that every time she really dines, she gets strange pains in her underneath. I wish I could fly back home, but I must grit my teeth and get rid of my beast too. I wonder which breed I'll try next time. Boston Bull, I suppose, I think that's where Carlton was first kenneled.
I have a large stove in my sitting-room and keep it going myself. Othello looks as though he'd laugh himself to death every time I put coal on—darn his pelt! He's crazy over Sioux Falls—possibly because there are seven dogs to the city block. He goes away on bridal tours every few days and then I have to get out a search warrant. I could live quite decently if I did not have to invest in so many rewards for him.
It is so terribly cold here that my very thoughts are frozen and my hot-water bag does nightly service. The thing sprung a leak last week and I took it to a garage to ask if they would mend it, and the fellow answered: "Certainly, madam, we have quite a trade in hot-water bottles and "nature's rivals."" I have also found out that the only place to buy burnt wood is at Mr. Trepaning's the undertaker and embalmer.
All the stiff and crackling branches of the trees are weighted down with a three-inch ruching of snow. It is all silently fascinating, especially so because since starting this letter two short raps at my window announce Carlton who comes each night to accompany me to the late post after the landlady is snoozing. His arms are around me as I scrawl, and the thousand tiny little thrills that answer so eagerly to his nearness, assure me that it is not deplorable to be thirty-nine.
December 20.
So near Xmas, dear, yet none of the Yule-tide joys float out to this frozen wilderness. Snow, snow everywhere. The tall alders, whose vivid coloring so inspired me when I arrived, are now black and gaunt, and the pitiless desert wind comes tearing and howling from the north to bend and crack their stiffened joints. I often wonder—am I any more the arbiter of my fate than these lifeless snow-draped spectres around me.
Carlton left the hotel almost a week ago and took the room next to mine. We are hopelessly in love with each other, and he wonders how he ever could have thought of accepting happiness from Mrs. Claymore, accompanied by so many freckles and a half million dollars.