When he wired that he was following to San Diego I was silent and let him come. It was then he realized how totally alone he was in the world, and how dependent also. My home was broken up and we were both wanderers. Though we were living at different hotels and I refused to discuss the matter with him, Mr. Saltus' conversation was directed to me through Toto.
"Come here, Toto," he said. "I didn't really hurt you, did I? I'm not always a devil. I have intervals of goodness. Go 'woof, woof' to Mummy and tell her I will go and die if she throws me into the ashcan."
This was followed by a series of "wows" and the remark:
"Don't give Snippsy up to the dog-catchers. Snippsy likes to be a subordinate entity. He isn't happy otherwise."
He was miserable and sincere, but self-preservation is a difficult thing to fight. The upshot of it was that Mr. Saltus agreed to go East for a month or two, leaving me in California to get my nerves in shape again. He was on probation, or, as he expressed it, "saved from the pound."
It was horrible to see him go, and yet we both needed perspective, being too excited to act or even think sanely, as the episode over Toto had made clear. Two highly temperamental people, no matter how devoted to one another, act and react at times to their mutual disadvantage.
Standing beside the Los Angeles Limited, which was to take him back via Chicago, Mr. Saltus slipped an envelope in my hand. Upon opening it a letter enclosing a poem fell out. That poem, under the title of "My Hand in Yours," was published later.
As Mr. Saltus discovered on the train, our minds had been working along similar lines, for I had slipped letters in various pockets in his coats and others in satchels, to cheer him at intervals on the return trip.