LETTER II
Dear P——, Here, without loss of time, in order that I may have your opinion upon it, is little Yes and No’s answer to my last.
“Sir, I should not have disregarded your injunction not to send you any more letters that might come to you, had I not promised the Gentleman who left the enclosed to forward it the earliest opportunity, as he said it was of consequence. Mr. P—— called the day after you left town. My mother and myself are much obliged by your kind offer of tickets to the play, but must decline accepting it. My family send their best respects, in which they are joined by
Yours, truly,
S. L.
The deuce a bit more is there of it. If you can make anything out of it (or any body else) I’ll be hanged. You are to understand, this comes in a frank, the second I have received from her, with a name I can’t make out, and she won’t tell me, though I asked her, where she got franks, as also whether the lodgings were let, to neither of which a word of answer. * * * * is the name on the frank: see if you can decypher it by a Red-book. I suspect her grievously of being an arrant jilt, to say no more—yet I love her dearly. Do you know I’m going to write to that sweet rogue presently, having a whole evening to myself in advance of my work? Now mark, before you set about your exposition of the new Apocalypse of the new Calypso, the only thing to be endured in the above letter is the date. It was written the very day after she received mine. By this she seems willing to lose no time in receiving these letters “of such sweet breath composed.” If I thought so—but I wait for your reply. After all, what is there in her but a pretty figure, and that you can’t get a word out of her? Hers is the Fabian method of making love and conquests. What do you suppose she said the night before I left her?
“H. Could you not come and live with me as a friend?
“S. I don’t know: and yet it would be of no use if I did, you would always be hankering after what could never be!”
I asked her if she would do so at once—the very next day? And what do you guess was her answer—“Do you think it would be prudent?” As I didn’t proceed to extremities on the spot, she began to look grave, and declare off. “Would she live with me in her own house—to be with me all day as dear friends, if nothing more, to sit and read and talk with me?”—“She would make no promises, but I should find her the same.”—“Would she go to the play with me sometimes, and let it be understood that I was paying my addresses to her?”—“She could not, as a habit—her father was rather strict, and would object.”—Now what am I to think of all this? Am I mad or a fool? Answer me to that, Master Brook! You are a philosopher.