Part 14 (1/2)

Nevertheless I may remind you that women at our time of life pa.s.s through critical moments, as I know by my daily experiences. The letter which I have written to you in a cool reasoning spirit might have been impossible a week or two ago. I should probably have reeled off pages of incoherent abuse.

Show Lillie that your pretended love was not selfishness pure and simple.

With kind greetings, Yours sincerely, ELSIE LINDTNER.

P.S.--I would rather not answer your personal attacks. I could not have acted differently and I regret nothing.

To-morrow morning I will get rid of that gardener without fail.

An extra month's wages and money for his journey--whatever is necessary--so long as he goes.

I wish to sleep in peace and to feel sure that my house is safely locked up, and I cannot sleep a wink so long as I know he comes to see Torp.

That my cook should have a man in does not shock me, but it annoys me.

It makes me think of things I wish to forget.

I seem to hear them laughing and giggling downstairs.

Madness! I could not really hear anything that was going on in the bas.e.m.e.nt. The birds were restless, because the night is too light to let them sleep. The sea gleams under the silver dome of the moonlit sky.

What is that?... Ah! Miss Jeanne going towards the forest.

Her head looks like one of those beautiful red fungi that grow among the fir-trees.

If the gardener had chosen _her_.... But Torp!

I should like to go wandering out into the woods and leave the house to those two creatures in the bas.e.m.e.nt. But if I happened to meet Jeanne, what explanation could I give?

It would be too ridiculous for both of us to be straying about in the forest, because Torp was entertaining a sweetheart in the bas.e.m.e.nt!

Doors and windows are wide open, and they are two floors below me, and yet I seem to smell the sour, disgusting odour of that man. Is it hysteria?...

No. I cannot sleep, and it is four in the morning. The sunrise is a glorious sight provided one is really in the mood to enjoy it. But at the present moment I should prefer the blackest night....

There he goes! Sneaking away like a thief. Not once does he look back; and yet I am sure the hateful female is standing at the door, waving to him and kissing her hand....

But what is the matter with Jeanne? Poor girl, she has hidden behind a tree. She does not want to be seen by him; and she is quite right, it would be paying the boor too great an honour.

Merely to watch Richard eating was--or rather it became--a daily torture. He handled his knife and fork with the utmost refinement. Yet I would have given anything if he would have occasionally put his elbows on the table, or bitten into an unpeeled apple, or smacked his lips....

Imagine Richard smacking his lips!

His manners at table were invariably correct.

I shall never forget the look of tender reproach he once cast upon me when I tore open a letter with my fingers, instead of waiting until he had pa.s.sed me the paper-knife. Probably it got upon his nerves in the same way that he got upon mine when he contemplated himself in the looking-gla.s.s.