Charles, I’ve been in hell and I’ve come out of it and I don’t want to go there again. Jealousy is hell and I’m not cured. Suppose I come to you, with all that old love—and you smile and stroll away? You’re free, your letter made that clear all right. Forgive me, but you know how people talk, everybody tells everybody everything, and I still keep meeting girls I didn’t even know you knew who say they’ve had romances with you, they may be lying of course. You know you can’t keep your hands off women, and I’m not young and beautiful any more, and you like chasing what isn’t easy to get, you don’t want to stay with anyone, in the end you drop everyone! You once said getting married was like buying a doll, which shows what you think of marriage. And I don’t believe you’ve really retired, Gilbert said it was like God retiring, you’re too restless. You made me act, you made everyone act, you’re like a very good dancer, you make other people dance but it’s got to be with you. You don’t respect people as people, you don’t see them, you’re not really a teacher, you’re a sort of rapacious magician. How can I imagine that all this could stop? Do you want me as a sort of patient friend, a chaperon with knitting, a calm wise older woman, a sort of retired senior wife to whom you can complain about the others? It wouldn’t work, Charles. I’m not calm and wise. I’d want everything. You could still have children. I remember you saying more than once how much you wanted a son. You could still have a son, only I couldn’t bear him. Oh Charles, Charles, why didn’t you marry me long ago, I loved you so much. I love you so much—only I can’t put my head into that noose. My love for you is quiet at last. I don’t want it to become a roaring furnace.