Perhaps it was you who had been flattering _my_ vanity in the
hope (the pardonable hope!) of turning me, after a decent interval, into a
pretty little essay with a margin.
When you arrived in Venice and we met again--do you remember the music on
the lagoon, that evening, from my balcony?--I was so afraid you would
begin to talk about the book--the book, you remember, was your ostensible
reason for coming. You never spoke of it, and I soon saw your one fear was
_I_ might do so--might remind you of your object in being with me. Then I
knew you cared for me! yes, at that moment really cared! We never
mentioned the book once, did we, during that month in Venice?
I have read my letter over; and now I wish that I had said this to you
instead of writing it. I could have felt my way then, watching your face
and seeing if you understood. But, no, I could not go back to Venice; and
I could not tell you (though I tried) while we were there together. I
couldn't spoil that month--my one month. It was so good, for once in my
life, to get away from literature....
You will be angry with me at first--but, alas! not for long. What I have
done would have been cruel if I had been a younger woman; as it is, the
experiment will hurt no one but myself. And it will hurt me horribly (as
much as, in your first anger, you may perhaps wish), because it has shown
me, for the first time, all that I have missed....
A JOURNEY
As she lay in her berth, staring at the shadows overhead, the rush of the
wheels was in her brain, driving her deeper and deeper into circles of
wakeful lucidity.
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