playing. Some one told me of his once saying of me that I "always
understood;" it is the only praise I ever heard of his giving me. I don't
even know if he thought me pretty, though I hardly think my appearance
could have been disagreeable to him, for he hated to be with ugly people.
At all events he fell into the way of spending more and more of his time
with me. He liked our house; our ways suited him. He was nervous,
irritable; people bored him and yet he disliked solitude. He took
sanctuary with us. When we travelled he went with us; in the winter he
took rooms near us in Rome. In England or on the continent he was always
with us for a good part of the year. In small ways I was able to help him
in his work; he grew dependent on me. When we were apart he wrote to me
continually--he liked to have me share in all he was doing or thinking; he
was impatient for my criticism of every new book that interested him; I
was a part of his intellectual life. The pity of it was that I wanted to
be something more. I was a young woman and I was in love with him--not
because he was Vincent Rendle, but just because he was himself!

People began to talk, of course--I was Vincent Rendle's Mrs. Anerton; when
the _Sonnets to Silvia_ appeared, it was whispered that I was Silvia.
Wherever he went, I was invited; people made up to me in the hope of
getting to know him; when I was in London my doorbell never stopped
ringing. Elderly peeresses, aspiring hostesses, love-sick girls and
struggling authors overwhelmed me with their assiduities. I hugged my
success, for I knew what it meant--they thought that Rendle was in love
with me! Do you know, at times, they almost made me think so too? Oh,
there was no phase of folly I didn't go through. You can't imagine the
excuses a woman will invent for a man's not telling her that he loves
her--pitiable arguments that she would see through at a glance if any
other woman used them! But all the while, deep down, I knew he had never
cared. I should have known it if he had made love to me every day of his