CHAPTER XVI
MARGARITA COMES TO TOWN
[From Sue Paynter]
Washington Square,
Oct. 16, 188—
Jerry Dear:
First about the will—how splendid it was! Nothing could have pleased Roger more, I am sure—he told me with that queer, little whimsical grimace of his that it cleared his conscience to feel he was leaving you something! What a personality he has, and how, in his quiet unassuming way, he impresses it on us!
I hear that Sarah made a great fuss about the will, but was advised by Mr. Sears to stop—and stopped! With Madame B. I am of course anathema—I have not heard from her since. The bank, bien entendu, is of the past, and you, I hear, are in the far West. How you will revel in the freedom and how good it must have been to kick off the ball and chain! If anyone can be trusted not to abuse leisure, it is you, dear Jerry—you won't appear so culpable, as a poor American always does, somehow, under such circumstances. Even I feel unjustifiably idle now, so I have taken up some of Mr. Elder's fads—what a fine, manly sort of fellow he is!—and may be seen, moi qui vous parle, teaching sight-reading to a boy's glee-club!
But of course you are impatiently waiting for me to turn to Margarita and leave this silly chatter about my egotistic self. Eh bien, she is marvellous. For half an hour I hated her, but I couldn't hold out any longer. I have never even imagined such a person. What a pose that would be if any actress were clever enough to avail herself of the un-paralleled opportunities it would give her! Of course I thought it was a pose, at first—I simply couldn't believe in her. But equally of course no woman could deceive another woman very long at that, and she is one to conquer both sexes. When she put her hand in mine and asked if I was going to buy her some dresses on Broadway, I had to kiss her.