“About you, fool.”
“About me?”
“None other. Hold your peace now, old son, while I read you her letter to Maisie.” And Mellenger read:
Riva, 16th August.
Dear Maisie:
Please read this letter from one who has spoiled much that was beautiful, one who has taken the taste out of three lives, yours, Dan Pritchard’s and my own.
Maisie, Dan Pritchard is here with me. He is my husband, and to me he is very kind and loving and faithful. When he came first it was his desire to marry me according to the way of your people, but the missionary here was mad and would not oblige him, so we were married according to the desire of our hearts. In the presence of the sea and the earth and the sky we swore, each to the other, that we would love each other and dwell together in honor. This we have done. But Dan is no longer happy. Life slowly loses its taste for him, I have watched and I know. He is very lonely, nor can all of my love compensate him for the loss of his friends, for the loss of the world that was his. I know he feels as sometimes I felt when I dwelled in his house in San Francisco, and that is terrible.
The thought has come to me that if Dan lives here he will some day grow to hate me. And I shall some day be too unlovely to hold him. These things cannot be helped. They are a part of life. My love wearies him even now. He is nervous and unhappy and sometimes he withdraws from my caresses, and last night in his sleep he spoke of you and his sorrow because you had not loved him. Perhaps you do not know this truth, Maisie, but men can never love as women love. It is very foolish to expect this. A woman can love one man until death, but a man can love two women, or even more, but he will love best that woman who gives to him the most comfort and peace of mind, the woman who makes few demands and who refrains from forcing love upon him when he is unhappy.
Dan Pritchard does not like my people. We are as oil and water. He does not like the food we have here, nor the heat nor the rain nor the silence nor the loneliness. He would have his own people about him. Alas, I would have mine about me. He fits not into my world, nor can I ever fit into his. Therefore, it is wise that we should part. I would not have him in unhappiness. Rather would I die.
Maisie, come for him. Please! Evil will befall him if you do not. If you love him as I think you do, you will come; nor will pride—the false pride of a woman—keep you from your happiness. Dan was always your man, Maisie. Never was he truly mine. I do not know why, but this is true. I would give him back to you, Maisie. Please come.