I am not sneering at you. I would not have it otherwise, for the world
would be one half cheaper if women like you did not follow the perpetual
instinct. True, civilization tends to curb this romantic desire, but when
civilization runs against a passionate nature we have a tragedy. The world
is sweeter, deeper, for that. Live and love, if you can, and give the lie
to facts. Be restless, be insatiable, be wicked, but believe that your
body and soul were meant for more than food and raiment; that somewhere,
somehow, some day, you will meet the dream made real, and that _he_ will
unlock the secrets of this life.

It is late. I am tired. The noises of the city begin, far down in the
darkness. This carries love.



NO. V. AROUSED.

(_Miss Armstrong protests and invites_.)

It is real, real, _real_. If I can say so, after going on all these years
with but one idea (according to my good friends) of settling myself
comfortably in some large home, shouldn't you believe it? You have lived
more interestingly than I, and you are not dependent, as most of us are.
You really mock me through it all. You think I am worthy of only a kind of
candy that you carry about for agreeable children, which you call love. To
me, sir, it reads like an insult--your message of love tucked in concisely
at the close.

No, keep to facts, for they are your _metier_. You make them interesting.
Tell me more about your idle, contemplative self. And let me see you