"This is Homeric," said Mrs. Montrose. "Bread and wine. The flesh is happily absent."
"Did you expect the blood of 'muttons, beefs, or goats'?" asked my father. "Sacrifice may come later."
Then followed a great deal of talk; but I have not been used to hearing so many people speaking at once, and I could scarcely follow, and cannot at all remember it. But while I sat fearing every instant that they would go, my heart bounded again, for Mrs. Montrose asked us both to row over to their camp and lunch with them. My father at once refused, sternly I thought, but he added, without looking at me,--
"O, yes, I will go," I cried. I must have been very eager, for they all laughed; all except my father, and he replied, "So be it."
They said good-by to him, and fluttered down to the wharf; and I pushed off my boat with the rest.
"Good-by!" I called to him, but he only waved his hand and turned away.
[Sidenote: _From Zoe Montrose to Francis Hume_]
Certainly I meant every word I said. The moment I saw what you had written for that stupid game, I knew you had a marvelous facility of expression. No doubt your father has nourished it by making you write so many reams of criticism; but it is evident that you had a gift in the beginning, the golden gift in the hand. And so, as I am one who thinks no fortune happier than that of the artisan trained to hammer out a phrase, what is more natural than that I should long for you to ascend from prentice to workman? Therefore write me,--"every day i' the hour," if you will,--and by all means drop the letters in the hollow tree. Here in this forest is the happy reverse of the world-shield; let conventions also be turned topsy-turvy, and letter-carriers be eschewed for a box of living oak and a cushion of crumbling mould. I will be your playmate, your comrade; not your friend. I hate the word between men and women. It is a mantle for mawkish sentiment, the kind that stalks about solemnly like a Puritan at a play, seeing all and affecting his own superiority. But, an you will, be my comrade only; let the Forest of Arden spring up again greenly, and let us play at simplicity and outspoken joy; all for the sake of developing your style! But, first of all, I do not like your reason for asking me to write to you; you cannot see me alone, forsooth! and you have a thousand questions which the others give us no time to ask and answer. Nonsense, doubled and trebled! You know enough of me. Be content to take me as I seem, and not as I am in the world's eyes and in my own; then you will the longer think me worthy to walk your Arden Forest. Not that I have anything to conceal. I am no more very bad than very good; but it is the tragic consequence of living in this world that (especially if we be men! you, sir, I mean you!) we idealize and then weigh--admire, laud to the skies, and then shove under the lens--only to find that all flesh is dust, and differeth not, except so much as sea-sand and mountain-loam. So be content to know this only about me: that I am five years your senior (a quarter-century, ye gods!), that I am poor and once was ambitious; that I earned my bread, as governess and intermittent literary hack, until a year ago, when a tiny fortune was left me by a relative whom the immortals loved not, since he lived so long; that I have written three novels, moderately successful, and am burning to find out whether I can write a play; and, last of all, that my aunt invited me down here to spend this summer in what she calls communion with nature. There! the chapter is closed. Be egotistical, you; but suffer me to talk about things seen and heard, not of those pertaining to the particle Me. Tell me everything you will, and without restraint. I may not criticise your style, though I shall watch to see it develop into something fine.