Hardly knowing what to say, but gaining
inspiration as he went along, he wrote the first of seven letters
to the lady at the Carlton. And the epistle he dropped in the post
box at midnight follows here:
DEAR LADY OF THE GRAPEFRUIT: You are very kind. Also, you are wise.
Wise, because into my clumsy little Personal you read nothing that
was not there. You knew it immediately for what it was--the timid
tentative clutch of a shy man at the skirts of Romance in passing.
Believe me, old Conservatism was with me when I wrote that message.
He was fighting hard. He followed me, struggling, shrieking,
protesting, to the post box itself. But I whipped him. Glory
be! I did for him.
We are young but once, I told him. After that, what use to signal
to Romance? The lady at least, I said, will understand. He sneered
at that. He shook his silly gray head. I will admit he had me
worried. But now you have justified my faith in you. Thank you a
million times for that!
Three weeks I have been in this huge, ungainly, indifferent city,
longing for the States. Three weeks the Agony Column has been my
sole diversion. And then--through the doorway of the Carlton
restaurant--you came--
It is of myself that I must write, I know. I will not, then, tell
you what is in my mind--the picture of you I carry.
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