_October_ 8.--I read out to Hilda a lyric I had just finished. It's to come in the Second Canto when Lancelot says good-bye to Princess Asra. The situation is roughly that the Princess bullies him and he gets sick of it and goes--and then, of course, she's sorry, when it's too late. He sings the song as he's going. She overhears it. I was rather pleased with it. Hilda said: "Oh! of course I know I worry you with my attentions." What this had got to do with the poem I can't think. It was all because last night, when I was working, Hilda came into my room and said: "Are you warm enough?" and I said "Yes," rather absent-mindedly, as I was in the middle of my work. Ten minutes later she looked in again and asked me if I wanted some beer, and I said "No," without looking up. Then very soon afterwards she came in a third time, and asked me if I was sure I wasn't cold, and whether I wouldn't have the fire lit. Rather snappishly--because it is a bore to be interrupted just when one's on the verge of getting an idea fixed--I said "No." I'm afraid this hurt her feelings. _October_ 9.--Since Hilda has given up her sketching she has nothing to do. I was very busy this afternoon finishing my weekly article in time for the post. She rushed into the room and said didn't I think a butterfly settling on a jock was the ultimate symbol of love and the mind of man? I said I thought she was very probably right. Heavens knows what she meant. Women's minds move by jerks, one never knows what they'll say next. They're so irrelevant. _October_ 10.--It's blowing a gale. Stuck in the poem. Hilda says it's cynical. I don't know what she means. She says she didn't know I was so bitter. I said: "It's only a kind of fairy tale." She said: "Yes; but that makes it worse." "But it's only an ordinary love story," I said. She said: "Of course I know nothing can go on being the same. It can no doubt be better, but not the same as it was before." "But Princess Asra is only an incident in my poem," I said. Hilda said nothing, but after a time she asked me whether I thought that was the meaning of the moan of the wind. I have no idea what she meant by "that." She is very cryptic sometimes.