This letter was not signed, for what signature could it possibly need?  Margaret read it, and read it again, wondering—­for she had never had such a letter in her life.  The men who had made love to her had never been privileged to speak plainly, for she would have none of them, and so they had been obliged to confine themselves to such cunning use of permissible words and phrases as they could command, together with copious quotations from more or less erotic poets.  Moreover, Claudius had never been in a position to speak his heart’s fill to her until that last day, when words had played so small a part.

It was a love-letter, at least in part, such as a man might have written a hundred years ago—­not such as men write nowadays, thought Margaret; certainly not such as Mr. Barker would write—­or could.  But she was glad he had written; and written so, for it was like him, who was utterly unlike any one else.  The letter had come in the morning while Clementine was dressing her, and she laid it on her writing-desk.  But when the maid was gone, she read it once again, sitting by her window, and when she had done she unconsciously held it in her hand and rested her cheek against it.  A man kisses a letter received from the woman he loves, but a woman rarely does.  She thinks when he is away that she would hardly kiss him, were he present, much less will she so honour his handwriting.  But when he himself comes the colour of things is changed.  Nevertheless, Margaret put the folded letter in her bosom and wore it there unseen all through that day; and when Mr. Barker came to offer to take her to drive she said she would not go, making some libellous remark about the weather, which was exceeding glad and sunshiny in spite of her refusal to face it.  And Mr. Barker, seeing that he was less welcome than usual, went away, for he was mortally afraid of annoying her.

Margaret was debating within herself whether she should answer, and if so, what she should say.  In truth, it was not easy.  She felt herself unable to write in the way he did, had she wished to.  Besides, there was that feminine feeling still lurking in her heart, which said, “Do not trust him till he comes back.”  It seemed to her it must be so easy to write like that—­and yet, she had not thought so at the first reading.  But she loved him, not yet as she would some day, but still she loved, and it was her first love, as it was his.

She had settled herself in the hotel for the present, and to make it more like home—­like her pretty home at Baden—­she had ordered a few plants and growing flowers, very simple and inexpensive, for she felt herself terribly pinched, although she had not yet begun actually to feel the restrictions laid on her by her financial troubles.  When Barker was gone, she amused herself with picking off the dried leaves and brushing away the little cobwebs and spiders that always accumulate about growing things.  In the midst of this occupation she made up her mind, and rang the bell.