"Women don't feel things like that—now," I muttered, as I crossed the room and lowered the curtain. "They—they have too many other things to divert them, I suppose!"
I knew, however, that I was judging everybody by myself, and certainly I had never known an awful hurt like that.
"Why, I could listen to a taximeter tick—for a whole year—while Guilford was away from me, and I don't believe it would make me nervous for a sight of him."
I was considerably disgusted with myself for my callousness as I came to this conclusion, however, and I sat down in the window, overlooking the tiny strip of rose-garden to think it out. Presently I crossed the room again to the desk.
"I'm not going to jest at scars—even if I haven't felt a wound!" I decided, once and for always.
I opened the desk then and gathered up the letters, packet by packet, tying them into one big bundle.
"Publish these—heart-throbs!"
I was so furious that I could have gagged Uncle Lancelot if he had opened his mouth—which he didn't dare do! In this respect he and grandfather are very much like living relatives. They'll argue with you through ninety-nine years of indecision, but once you've made up your mind irrevocably they close their lips into a sullen silence—saving their breath for "I told you so!"
"I don't see how anybody could have thought of such blasphemy!" I kept on. "It would be like a vivisection! That's what people want though, nowadays—they won't have just a book! They want to be present at a clinic!—They want to see others' hearts writhe—because they have no feelings of their own!"
Then, after my thoughts had had time to get away from the past up into the present and project themselves, somewhat spitefully, into the future, I made another decision, slamming the desk lid to accentuate it.