Well, back in Birch Street, before I came to you, when I was honestly a child, I lived all alone inside of myself. I lived chiefly on stories I made up about myself; and of course my stories were all escapes from reality--from the things that hurt or disgusted me most. There was hardly anything in my life at home that I didn't long to escape from. You can understand that, in a general way. But there's one thing you perhaps haven't thought about; it's such an ugly thing to think about. I know it isn't modern of me, but I do hate to talk about it, even to you. I must, though. You'll never understand--oh, lots of later things--unless I do. Love, Ambo, human love, as I learned of it there at home--and I saw and heard much too much of it--frightened and sickened me. It was swinish--horrible. Most of all I longed to escape from all that! I couldn't. I wonder if anyone ever has or can? We are made as we are made.... Yes, I longed to escape from it; but my very made-up story of escape was a disguised romance. Jimmy was to be the gentle Galahad who would some day rescue me. He had done battle for me once already--with Joe Gonfarone. But some day he would come in white, shining armor and take me far away from all the mud and sweat of Birch Street to blue distant hills. Artemis was all mixed up in it, too; she was to be our special goddess; our free, swift, cool-eyed protector. There was to be no heartsick shame, no stuffiness in my life any more forever! But it wasn't Jimmy who rescued me, Ambo. You did. Only, when we've lived in a dream, wholly, for months and months and months, it doesn't vanish, Ambo; it never vanishes altogether; it's part of us--part of our lives. Isn't it? Gertrude was once your dream, dear; and the dream-Gertrude has never really vanished from your life, and never will. Ah, don't I know! Well, then you rescued me; and you and Phil and Maltby and Sister and books and Hillhouse Avenue and France and Italy and England, and my Magic Circle--_everything_--crowded upon me and changed me and made me what I am; if I'm anything at all! But Birch Street had made me first; and my dreams....