"To my surprise, you wrote that you, personally, had no use for the kind of man I described.
"Was that a snub for me or for Scott? I'm sorry I spoke of him. To me he is a nice, wholesome, amusing fellow, so friendly to everybody that, somehow, your letter—what you said in it about a man you never met—hurt me. You would like him if you knew him. So, with this feminine prerogative, I close my lips about Scott Wallace for the present and the future.
"I am glad your arm is practically well; but what makes me entirely contented is what you say of your constant and bewildering promotions. Best of all is what I read between the lines—that you really love the business—the business of generations of Edgertons; and you, the last of them—but not the last, God willing!—are plunging into the game up to your neck, interested, optimistic, enthusiastic, fitting yourself for that dignified place which is yours, Jim, by every right.
"Now that it's over, and the mist blown clear of your path forever, I want to confess to you how dreadfully I felt to see you here in such a capacity. More than that, your light talk about the arts, your light and graceful accomplishments in them, your tendency to drift back toward a career for which you are no more fitted than I—all these things troubled me deeply, so that, sometimes, I even dreamed of them, and finally came to regard your facility with actual fear, so jealous was I for your real career, so anxious was I that you should become your real self.
"I suppose you will scarcely believe it, Jim, when I tell you that this feeling began from the very moment when you offered to go with Silvette and me to Adriutha. Somehow, blindly, I understood even then that it was not the thing for you to do; and, remember, I knew you scarcely at all.
"Yet my instinct resented your going, and if I did not actually protest, perhaps you may recollect that my attitude was not cordial; that you had to ask me many times for my vote; that, after all, I never cast it, but simply refrained from voting at all.
"I suppose this was cowardly in me; yet, Jim, what else could I have done? I scarcely knew you; I dared not appear ungrateful after your kindness to Silvette and to me.
"Forgive this self-defense. I merely wanted you to know; I only wish you to understand that, at heart anyway, I have been, from the beginning, loyal to the best interests of a friend and a kinsman who was most kind to two girls alone in the world."
"This is a still, golden, autumn world—autumn no longer, alas! for we are already well along in November. But autumn lingers in this land of hills and waters, and the frost was not severe enough to blacken the late roses. If the weather is unseasonable, it is also charming, and I love it. Russet and gold always did fascinate me—like the hangings and tapestries in your studio, with the dusty sunlight falling over all.
"Eh bien, monsieur, I must conclude my monologue. You are a brave man if you have read as far as the name you gave me once—centuries ago.