"Tonight I cannot see you--that was really all I understood over the telephone, though I know you gave me the decent sensible reasons why you cannot come--something about work at the office, wasn't it?--for as soon as I heard you say that, I thought, Oh, bang goes the whole batch of cookies. You see, I was going to be domestic for you tonight, and I had just taken some cookies from the oven when you phoned--the airy egg-white kind, a sort of culinary idiocy because no damn good the next day, like letting air out of a tire. Therefore if I were a weeping wench they would now be soaked in brine and serve you right. But I never weep, Jimmy. Never. Remember that. So, since you cannot come, I will only count over the times I've had you with me, a miser adoring the sparkle and fall of jewels through her fingers. While you are submerged in the honest dreadfulness of whatever you do at the office--what the devil is it anyhow?--do you convey subtle conveyances and do dark deeds (these are puns) or just sit with your feet up and brood over Deals?--think of me playing with my pretties and having a better time than yourself, because this is all I can wish to do when you're away from me. Because I love you. "It occurs to me, I never wrote to you before. You may not like me on paper. I sprawl and ramble, Dearest. Don't mind my doodling either--see the border I drew around your true name while I daydreamed and my pen was thinking for me? I'm only surprised it wasn't a tangle of Cupids, an out-of-season Valentine, and maybe it will be yet. In my here-and-now mood I would draw them saucy, I think (most of them), strutting and romping and showing off their little male apostrophes--all, I suppose, with a sneaking resemblance to you. Because I love you. "No, don't say it's reckless and foolish of me to write at all--I know it. I can't care, not now. I tell you, Jimmy, what we have (is it possible it's only ten days?) is something that could not happen with Ann. Or anywhere in her world. I tell myself, I am not she, she is not me, my love (you know it) is nothing like what could happen for you with anyone but me. And there's my cure for jealousy--if I could apply it, if I could make my head rule me a little more, my crazy heart a little less. I want you, I'm empty and dull in your absence, tonight this is the only way I can talk to you. So let me talk, and think me foolish and reckless, and destroy this scrawled thing if you think best. It's me, though. Remember when you throw it away, it's me. And perhaps (because I love you) I wouldn't like you to burn me. "More than you have already.