...
As her favourite sonneteer, Santayana, writes--lines she often quoted--
"Love leads me on, no end of love appears.
Is this the heaven, poets, that ye paint?
Oh then, how like damnation to be blessed!"
* * * * *
I informed Ruth, Darrie, Penton that I was going to New York in the
morning....
Penton immediately whisked out of my sight, full of uncontrollable
emotion....
Darrie and Ruth almost fell upon me, trying to persuade me not to rejoin
Hildreth. I evaded by saying that I was now on my way to Europe, that
possibly I might see her before I went, but--
* * * * *
I had an hour till train time. My MSS. was packed again, my Josephus, my
Homer, my Shakespeare, my Keats, my bath robe.
I thought I would escape without saying good-bye.
But Penton came down the front porch, stood in my path.
"Johnnie, a last warning."
"I want none of your last warnings."
"Are you going to Hildreth?"
"I'm tired of being a liar. I've never lied so much in my life ... yes,
I'm going to Hildreth ... and I'm going to persuade her to live with me,
and defy the whole damned world--the world of fake radicals that talk
about divorces when the shoe pinches them, as well as the world of
conservatives," I announced harshly.
"I've done all I could!" he responded wearily, "I see you won't come to
your senses--wait a minute!" and he turned on his heel.
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