In small ways I was able to help him
in his work; he grew dependent on me. When we were apart he wrote to me
continually--he liked to have me share in all he was doing or thinking; he
was impatient for my criticism of every new book that interested him; I
was a part of his intellectual life. The pity of it was that I wanted to
be something more. I was a young woman and I was in love with him--not
because he was Vincent Rendle, but just because he was himself!
People began to talk, of course--I was Vincent Rendle's Mrs. Anerton; when
the _Sonnets to Silvia_ appeared, it was whispered that I was Silvia.
Wherever he went, I was invited; people made up to me in the hope of
getting to know him; when I was in London my doorbell never stopped
ringing. Elderly peeresses, aspiring hostesses, love-sick girls and
struggling authors overwhelmed me with their assiduities. I hugged my
success, for I knew what it meant--they thought that Rendle was in love
with me! Do you know, at times, they almost made me think so too? Oh,
there was no phase of folly I didn't go through. You can't imagine the
excuses a woman will invent for a man's not telling her that he loves
her--pitiable arguments that she would see through at a glance if any
other woman used them! But all the while, deep down, I knew he had never
cared. I should have known it if he had made love to me every day of his
life. I could never guess whether he knew what people said about us--he
listened so little to what people said; and cared still less, when he
heard.
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