CXLIX
Hazel Barrance to Nesta Rossiter
My Dear Nesta,—You needn’t worry about things here. They are going very smoothly. Little stomach-aches and trifles like that; nothing more.
I had an unexpected and not too welcome visitor yesterday in the somewhat Gothic shape of Horace Mun-Brown, who had discovered from Evangeline where I was. He stayed to lunch—your food and drink—and talked exclusively of himself and his creative brain, both of which he again laid at my feet. I suppose some men like the sensation of being turned down, but I feel somehow that I should hate it. I mean as a habit—and by the same person. Perhaps the shock to Horace’s egoism is a kind of stimulant and he goes off and is more creative than ever. At any rate he went away with his absurd head high in the air and what is called a confident tread, and this morning came a long letter about his latest scheme, which is to run a theatre called The Polyglot for plays in foreign languages, in order to get the patronage of the various foreign residents in London. One week a Greek play, for the Greek colony, then an Italian, for the Italian, then a Russian, then an American, and so forth. But he can carry this fatiguing project through successfully only if he has my wifely co-operation and, I suppose, the necessary capital. But it is the wifely co-operation that he insists upon and that I most cordially resent.
Mrs. Urible is now more punctual and does not leave so early.
Poor Roy has just written to me about his broken heart. O that Irish syren! But his heart mends very quickly.
I am bidden to tennis at Lady Sandys’ on Sunday. Some real Wimbledon men who have engaged in mixed doubles with the marvellous Lenglen. This is too exciting.—Yours,
Hazel