c of manner--or means to be. I prefer him when
in the dumps. He attends every rehearsal and is greatly excited over my
part. He now thinks you great, and calls you 'the American Sardou.' ...
I have put all our dismal hours behind me. 'All this, too, shall pass
away.' ... I care not to what audacity you wing your way, if only you
come back to us your good, sane, undaunted self once more."

In this letter, as in all her intercourse with him, there was restraint,
as though love were being counselled by prudence. And this was, indeed,
the case. A foreboding of all that an acknowledgment of a man's
domination might mean to her troubled Helen. The question, "How would
marriage affect my plans," beset her, though she tried to thrust it
away, to retire it to the indefinite future.

Her love grew steadily, feeding upon his letters, which became each day
more buoyant and manly, bringing to her again the sense of unbounded
ambition and sane power with which his presence had filled her at their
first meeting.

"You are not of the city," she wrote. "You belong to the country. Think
how near New York came to destroying you. You ought not to come back.
Why don't you settle out there and take up public life?"

His answer was definite: "You need not fear. The city will never again
dominate me. I have found myself--through you. With you to inspire me I
cannot fail. Public life! Do you mean politics? I am now fit for only
one thing--to write. I have found my work. And do you think I could live
anywhere without hope of seeing you? My whole life is directed towards
you--to be worthy of you, to be justified in asking you to join your
life to mine. These are my ambitions, my audacious desires. I love you,
and you must know that I cannot be content with your friendship--your
affection--which I know I have. I want your love in return. Not now--not
while I am a man of words merely. As I now feel _Alessandra_ is a little
thing compared with the sacrifice you have made for me. I have stripped
away all my foolish egotism, and when I return to see you on the opening
night I shall rejoice in your success without a tinge of bitterness. It
isn't as if the melodrama were degrading in its appeal. It does not
represent my literary ideals, of course, but it is not contemptible, it
is merely conventional. My mind _has_ cleared since I came here. I see
myself in proper relation to you and to the public. I see now that with
the large theatre, with the long