With that she was deep in her letter and Robert
Halarkenden had moved a few yards and was tending a shrub that seemed
to need nursing.

October the Sixth.

MY DEAR MR. McBIRNEY--

"The night wind idling down the dusty street"--You do make patterns out
of the dictionary which please me. But I know that irritates you, for
words are not what you are paying attention to--of course--if they
were, yours wouldn't be so wonderful. It's the wind of the spirit that
blows them into beautiful shapes for you, I suppose. To let that go,
for it's immaterial--you think I might have a job? I? That I might do
a real thing for anybody ever? If you only knew me. If you only could
see the mountains of whipped cream and Maraschino cherries, the cliffs
of French clothes and automobiles, the morasses of afternoon teas and
dances and calls and luxury in general that lie between me and any
usefulness. It's the maddest dream that I, with my bones and my money
and my bringing up, all my crippling ailments, could ever, _ever_ climb
those mountains and cliffs and wade through those bogs. It's mad, I
say, you visionary, you man on the other side of all that, who are
living, who are doing things. I never can--I never can. And yet, it's
so terrible, it's so horrible, so frightening, so desperate, sometimes,
to be drowning in luxury. I woke in the night last night and before my
eyes had opened I had flung out my hand and cried out loud in the dark:
"What shall I do with my life--Oh what shall I do with my life?" And
it isn't just me--though that's the burning, close question to my
simple selfishness. But it's a lot of women--a lot. We're waking all
over the world. We want to help, to be worth while; to help, to count.
It won't do much longer to know French and Italian and play middling
tennis and be on the Altar Society. You know what I mean. All
that--yes--but beyond that the power which a real person carries into
all that to make it big. The stronger you are the better your work is.
I want to be strong, to be useful, to touch things with a personality
which will move them, make them go, widen them. How? How can I? What
can I do, ever? Oh what _can_ I do--_what_ can I do--with my life! I
thought that day in August that it was only my illness, and my tie to
an unloved man, but it's more than that. You have broadened the field
of my longing, my restlessness, till it covers--everything. Help me
then, for you have waked me t