IV
Thus it happened that regularly every week a letter went to Rome, beginning, at Cecily's request (her own original contribution), "My dearest Noel," and ending with "your very loving Cecily." The girl who wrote the letters sat up far into the night. Not that she was writing all the time. She read and re-read sheets of close writing on thin foreign paper. Every time she came to an endearing word her colour came and went, and she drew in her breath quickly. To be accurate, the words of love were not many. The letters were perhaps a trifle wanting in colour for a lover. They were the letters of a clever, cultivated man, a little cold by nature. Perhaps too highly polished. But the reader did not criticise. She changed colour when she read "my love;" she smiled triumphantly when he said how it gratified him to know that in their tastes and feelings they were so fully in sympathy. He had not been quite sure of this, he wrote—she had been so silent, so shy—and he had had to learn from her letters that he should have a wife as clever as she was beautiful. Once when she read words to this effect, Gretchen crumpled the paper fiercely in her hand, and sprang to her feet. With a smile of self-mockery, she went to the glass and deliberately studied herself. It reflected a little thin figure, with large, glittering eyes, irregular features, and a mass of rough, wavy hair. A somewhat striking apparition—picturesque, perhaps. But beautiful? A vision of Cecily's stately white loveliness swam before her eyes, and she turned away impatiently.
But the letter must be answered, and she sat down to her weekly task—a torture which she would not now forego if Cecily begged it of her on her bended knees.
