“PATRICIA, MY DEAR—
“I’ve given instructions about having this mailed. By the time
you read it, I shall have found out whether they keep Hungarian
dancers in heaven. (If not, I plan to fling myself over the
golden bar forthwith.)
“If you were fond of me, Patricia, as I have
sometimes—conceitedly—thought you were, in memory of me drink
no absinthe, any more, all the days of your giddy life. Do you
mind?
“I may or may not have presented you with something, in flinging
Noel into that life. Whether he turns out to be a present or
not, I am sending you another—a string of amber beads, to warm
the throat of a young woman who managed to warm my heart.
“Until we meet again, my dear—(that was a war song, or were you
too young to remember)—
“Affectionately—”
September—Heat seemed to have lasted, immemorially.
I wore Kenneth’s golden amber beads over summer frocks that were, after
an hour’s wearing, wilted as four day old roses. Helena took her
painting to the Nova Scotian coast. I missed her cool comments on people
as they passed.
I had a letter from Peter. For a minute, when I found it in my mail box,
my heart beat faster than ordinarily. I bathed, and put on a cool
negligee, and made myself iced tea; and then, when I felt very calm,
opened the letter.
“MY ALREADY SOME-TIME LEGALLY DEPARTED,
“Would you risk dining with me once more? Positively last
appearance—genuine farewell tour and so on. I have something to
tell you that I should prefer to tell you, rather than have you
hear it, fourth-hand, in a speakeasy.
“How about telephoning me at the office? It would be pleasant to
see you, Patricia.”
Two days later, I telephoned him, and arranged to dine with him on
Sunday. Until then, I did not speculate about his “news.”
Sunday was the first cool day in weeks.
I dressed carefully, for the sake of years in which Peter’s opinion of
my appearance had seemed important. I wore a dress with bright pink
rosebuds printed on a deep blue background, and a deep blue velvet hat,
and carried my beloved silver fox.
We met at the Brevoort; decided not to dine there, and went to
Giacomo’s, because it was a restaurant with a garden. Peter was looking
well, looking a little older, weighing a little more.
On the way to dinner, we talked about how hot summer had been.
I wondered what he was thinking, and I thought, “It is not true that, in
time, one ‘gets over’ almost anything. In time, one _survives_ almost
anything. There is a distinction.”
Over the Martinis, I said to Peter, “I survived you, Peter. I never
thought I could. It is surprising, isn’t it, that I did?”
He said, “You look as if nothing had ever happened to you in your life.”
“Nothing much has. I never swam the Channel or had twins or wrote a play
or murdered a rival. I have just lived quietly, year after year, on
Scotch and kisses.”
I thought that was entertaining—it was the best I could manage
off-hand. His face continued to be grave, however, and so I tried again.
“Tell me your great news,” I said, “Have you found love at last, or have
they made you an aviation expert, or have you a new bootlegger who sells
nothing but genuine pre-war stock?”
I thought, “I used to ache when I looked at Peter, because I loved him
so. Now I ache when I look at him, because nothing in me stirs at all.
He is just a good-looking young man with whom I am dining. I wonder what
he is like, really.”
He said: “The damndest thing about you is that you look so virginal. You
don’t change at all.”
“Men think a woman is just as she was, until her face begins to sag,
Peter. They judge by contours, not by character. I am twenty-six—I was
twenty, or was it nineteen, when we met?”
“You were nineteen.”
“They say every bit of a person’s body changes in seven years. . . .
Tell me, did you have an exciting time in Boston?”
He had been sent by his paper to report the last days of Sacco and
Vanzetti, recently electrocuted. Throughout dinner, we discussed Sacco
and Vanzetti, casually, as strangers meeting for the first time might
discuss any piece of front-page news.
When we had reached coffee and liqueurs, Peter said: “Come sit in my
back-yard garden and talk to me. It is pleasanter there than here.”