It began abruptly:
/# "You will hardly wonder that I should write at once to ask if you have no explanation to give me of your manner of this afternoon. Again and again I go over what happened, but no light comes. It was as though you had wiped out all the six months of our friendship; as though I had become for you once more the merest acquaintance. It is impossible that I can have been mistaken. You meant to make me--and others?--clearly understand--what? That I no longer deserved your kindness--that you had broken altogether with the man on whom you had so foolishly bestowed it?
"My friend, what have I done? How have I sinned? Did that sour lady, who asked me questions she had small business to ask, tell you tales that have set your heart against me? But what have incidents and events that happened, or may have happened, in India, got to do with our friendship, which grew up for definite reasons and has come to mean so much--has it not?--to both of us? I am not a model person, Heaven knows!--very far from it. There are scores of things in my life to be ashamed of. And please remember that last year I had never seen you; if I had, much might have gone differently.
"But how can I defend myself? I owe you so much. Ought not that, of itself, to make you realize how great is your power to hurt me, and how small are my powers of resistance? The humiliations you can inflict upon me are infinite, and I have no rights, no weapons, against you.
"I hardly know what I am saying. It is very late, and I am writing this after a dinner at the club given me by two or three of my brother officers. It was a dinner in my honor, to congratulate me on my good fortune. They are good fellows, and it should have been a merry time. But my half hour in your room had killed all power of enjoyment for me. They found me a wretched companion, and we broke up early. I came home through the empty streets, wishing myself, with all my heart, away from England--facing the desert. Let me just say this. It is not of good omen that now, when I want all my faculties at their best, I should suddenly find myself invaded by this distress and despondency. You have some responsibility now in my life and career; if you would, you cannot get rid of it. You have not increased the chances of your friend's success in his great task.
"You see how I restrain myself. I could write as madly as I feel--violently and madly. But of set purpose we pitched our relation in a certain key and measure; and I try, at least, to keep the measure, if the music and the charm must go. But why, in God's name, should they go? Why have you turned against me? You have listened to slanderers; you have secretly tried me by tests that are not in the bargain, and you have judged and condemned me without a hearing, without a word. I can tell you I am pretty sore.
"I will come and see you no more in company for the present. You gave me a footing with you, which has its own dignity. I'll guard it; not even from you will I accept anything else. But--unless, indeed, the grove is cut down and the bird flown forever--let me come when you are alone. Then charge me with what you will. I am an earthy creature, struggling through life as I best can, and, till I saw you, struggling often, no doubt, in very earthy ways. I am not a philosopher, nor an idealist, with expectations, like Delafield. This rough-and-tumble world is all I know. It's good enough for me--good enough to love a friend in, as--I vow to God, Julie!--I have loved you.
"There, it's out, and you must put up with it. I couldn't help it. I am too miserable.
"But--
"But I won't write any more. I shall stay in my rooms till twelve o'clock. You owe me promptness." #/