When at last he sat up, he took from his pocket Diana's letter, and read it again, passing his hand now and then nervously through his hair, until it stood up like the ruffled plumage of an eagle. "DEAR ANTHONY:-- "It will be easier for me to talk with you in this way than face to face. When you are with me, my point of view seems to get mixed up with your point of view, and before I know it, I find myself making promises which I cannot keep, as to-night, when I almost said I would stay--and be your friend. "I have always been your friend, Anthony. Haven't I? Even when I was a little girl, and you were a big boy, you seemed to find something in me which made it worth while for you to leave the other big boys and stay with me and talk about my books. Will I ever forget how you read some of them aloud to me? I never open now my thumbed little copy of 'Cranford' without hearing your laughing voice stumbling over the mincing phrases, and as for 'Little Women,' I believe that I worshiped in you the personification of 'Laurie.' "But those were not the best times, Anthony. The best were when it was too dark to read, and I would curl up on the big bench by the side of the fire, and you would lie at full length on the hearth-rug, and the wind would blow and the waves would boom, and you would weave tales for me out of your wonderful wealth of boyish dreams. "Blessed memories! But even then I believe I resented your masterfulness a bit, Anthony. There was that time when you told me that I must get my lessons before you would finish the story which was so near the end. And I cried and coaxed, but you stood firm--and I respected you for it, and hated you and loved you in one breath. "Oh, my big boy Anthony! Shall I ever forget you, with your brown lock over your blue eyes, your unswerving honesty of purpose, your high ideals. When you came home from college, and I had just put up my hair, and lengthened my dresses, you started to kiss me, then stopped. 'I thought I could,' you said, with such a funny note of surprise in your voice, 'but there's something about you that sort of--holds me off, Di.' "I think then that I began to know my power over you. And how I have used it, Anthony! I have kept you single and alone all these years, because something in me would not yield to your kind of wooing. "If only you could have been a cave man and could have carried me off! So many women wish that of men, especially proud women. It isn't that we admire brutality, but we want to have all of our little feminine doubts and fears overcome by the man's decisive action. And you made the mistake of waiting patiently, asking me now and then, 'Will you?' instead of saying, 'You must.'