"Poet," she had once said, "come to my place in the South. I have a
bungalow back of my house that you may live in ... write your poems
unmolested ... I won't be going there for awhile yet, but I will give
you a letter to the caretaker, and you can use the place. And my pantry
and ice box will be at your service ... so you'll need do nothing but
write."
Now, fed full of rebuffs, I wished I had accepted her offer. And I wrote
her, care of the Eos Artworks ... an ingenuous letter, burning with
naïve love....
She had once told me how she had scandalised the neighbours by painting
a little boy, in the nude, in that same bungalow ... the story being
carried about by the servants ... and if it had not been for her social
prestige!--
I thought there could be nothing pleasanter than living in her place,
perhaps becoming her lover....