* * * * *
Our tennis-playing, Blue-Law martyrs, as I have said, were held over
night in the workhouse ... or maybe two nights, I do not exactly
remember which ... and when they came back they were full of the
privations of jail-life, and the degradation of the spirit and mind
suffered by prisoners there. To me, their attitude seemed rather
tender-foot and callow. It was something that would have been accepted
off-handedly by me. I had been in jail often, not for a cause, as I
punned wretchedly, but _be-cause_. I did not accord hero-worship to
Penton when he returned, as the women of the household did.
For a week it quite reconciled Hildreth with him....
* * * * *
But on the first night of his absence Hildreth and I took a stroll
together in the moonlight.
Long the three women and myself had sat in the library, while I read
aloud from a MSS. volume of my poetry, which I intended submitting to
the Macmillans soon. For Ruth knew Mr. Brett and promised to give me an
introduction to him. And I was to make a special trip to the city on the
money I had saved from my weekly remittances ... for Penton would not
permit me to spend a cent for my keep while I visited him. And I had
already been with him three weeks....
* * * * *
I read them many love poems--those I had written for Vanna.
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