rtainly have
lived in the same intimacy with a fool who had been as high principled,
as moral, and as sober as Howard was the reverse of all these. Our mode
of life was very different, as naturally it would be, since I had come
with a predetermination to do nothing but work, and he with an equally
strong one to idle his days away in the most enjoyable manner he could
invent. For myself, I was fairly content with the prospect before me.
Work I was accustomed to, and it was easy. A new idea for a manuscript
had begun to hover fitfully before my mental vision, and was gradually
absorbing my thoughts into itself. Had I been able to write to and hear
from Lucia I should have been satisfied, but my father had made the
absence of all correspondence between us a sine qua non of my coming
here. When I had heard this I had looked at him with some little
amusement. Such a stipulation as this seemed to me to have only one
interpretation--he hoped and thought I should forget her!

"What is the meaning of this?" I asked. "What can be the benefit of it?
How can the fact of our writing or not writing be of importance? Do you
think I shall ever relinquish Lucia? I am resigned to wait as long as
must be, but I am utterly determined to have her in the end."

To which my father had answered grimly with a smile,--

"Very well, my dear Victor, see that you get her!"

Which remark had made me grind my teeth and then laugh and shrug my
shoulders.

"And you won't permit a letter a month?"

"No."

"Oh, dressed in your little brief authority!" I thought, looking at
him. Then I said--

"Very good--I agree."

"I consider I have your word that you will not write, nor hear from
her, directly or indirectly, within this year?"

"Certainly you have."

And so the matter was settled.

When Lucia heard of it, we met each other's eyes, and she elevated her
eyebrows, and a faint smile curved her lips.

"It will make no difference," she murmured, and nothing more.

After all, I don't know that I cared very greatly about the letters. It
was Lucia herself that I wanted--nothing less. It gives me very little
pleasure to read a letter, and I never have understood the cherishing
locks of hair and dead roses business.

The desire for the presence of the living personality is too
sharp-edged to let me feel satisfaction in substitutory objects and
vague associations. To have put my hand round Lucia's living throat;
yes, that would have been a keen