Tell me, again, that my absence makes a blank in your
life. You did not write the word, you only left a space, and do you
know how I filled it at first? 'It was such a _relief_ when you left
off coming,' I read, and I raged at you.
"I have heard it said lately that you are fickle, but these people do
not understand you. You are true to your ideal, but the women you have
hitherto known were only so many imperfect realisations of it, and so
you went from one to the other, always searching, but never satisfied.
And you have it in you to be so much happier or so much more miserable
than other men--I should have trembled for you if your hopes had never
been realised.
"But what _would_ satisfy you? I often long to be that mummy you
have in the Great Hospital, the one with the short nose and thick lips.
When you looked at me spirit and flesh would grow one with delight, and
I should come to life, and grow round and soft and warm again, and talk
to you of Thebes, and you would be enchanted with me--you could not
help it then. I should be so old, so very old, and genuine!
"Dear, how I laugh at my fears now, or rather, how I bless them.
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