Try and arrange it so that we may meet without any secrecy and as good friends do. You will be distressed, no doubt, to learn that I am not at all well and am horribly bored. Do come soon to Paris, dear _Mariquita_, and make me fall in love with you. Then I shall be no longer lonely, and in compensation I shall make you very unhappy by my whims. For some time your writing has been very careless and your letters short. I am convinced that you have no love for any one, and never will have any. However, you understand well enough the theory of love. Good-bye. You have my best wishes for your health, for your happiness, that you may not marry, that you may come to Paris--in short, that we may become good friends. IX _Mariquita de mi alma_: I am grieved to learn of your indisposition. When this letter reaches you I hope you will have fully recovered your health, and that you will be in a condition to write me longer letters. Your last one was maddeningly brief and stiff, a style of writing to which you formerly accustomed me, but which is now more annoying than you can imagine. Write me a long letter, and tell me all kinds of pleasant things. What is your malady? Have you some vexation to endure, or is it a sorrow? In your last note there are several mysterious phrases, as all your phrases are which intimated this. But between ourselves, I do not believe you have ever known the luxury of that organ called the heart. You have troubles of the mind, pleasures of the mind; but the organ known as the heart is developed only about the twenty-fifth year of age, in the 46th degree of latitude. You will knit your beautiful black brows at this, and say, “The saucy man doubts that I have a heart!” for this nowadays is the great assumption. Since so many novels and poems of passion, so called, have been written, all women affect to have a heart. Wait a little while. When you have really discovered your heart you will tell me about it; you will recall regretfully these good days when you were ruled only by the mind, and you will realise that the vexations you now suffer are mere pin-pricks compared to the dagger-thrusts that shall overwhelm you when the days of passion shall have come. I have been grumbling about your letter, but it really contains some very agreeable news: that is, the definite promise, graciously given, to send me your photograph. This gives me great pleasure, not only because I shall then know you better, but especially because it will be a token of your growing confidence in me. I see that I am making progress in your esteem, and congratulate myself. When am I to receive this portrait? Will you give it to me yourself? If so, I will come to receive it. Or will you give it to Mr. V., who will send it to me with all due discretion? Have no fear of either him or his wife. I should prefer to receive it from your own white hand.