These are unconventional times; a new freedom is dawning, and to me the dawn seems threatening. I am too old, too near my end not to feel that the old régime, with all its drawbacks, was safer for women, productive of better results, less hazardous, less threatening.
But I don't know: I am old-fashioned except in theory. I have professed the creed of the new feminism; I have in my time—and very properly—denounced the tyranny and selfishness and injustice of man-made laws which fetter and cripple my sex.
But—at heart—and with not very many days left to me—at heart I am returning rather wearily along the way I came toward what, now to me, seems safer. It may be only the notions of an old woman, very tired, very sad, conscious of failure, and ready to rest and leave the responsibility where it originated and where it belongs. I don't know. But I wish Stephanie were not alone in the world.
Miss Quest died before the letter reached him. Stephanie's next letter informed him of all the details. She continued:
No use your coming back until you are quite ready, Jim. There's nothing for you to do.
I've taken a studio and apartment with Helen Davis, the animal sculptor. I don't yet know just what I shall do. I'm likely to try several things before I know what I ought to stick to.
Don't feel any absurd sense of responsibility for me. That would be too silly. Feel free to remain abroad as long as it suits you. I also feel absolutely free to go and come as I please. That's the best basis for our friendship, Jim, and, in fact, the necessary and vital basis. My affection is unaltered, but, somehow, it has been such a long time that you seem almost unreal to me.
He did not sail at once. After all, in the face of such an unmistakable declaration of independence, it did not seem worth while for him to arouse himself from the golden lethargy of enchantment and break the spell of Europe which held him content, amid the mellow ripeness of her capitals and the tinted splendour of her traditions.
He wrote frequently for a few months. Then his letters lagged.
Once his pretty Countess had warned him that, for an American, Europe was merely the school-room but his own country was the proper and only place for creative labour.