I had grown old. Passion had
died. Hope--the hope of hearing the patter of a child's feet
about my house, the hope of pride in a quasi-paternity, of
handing on, vicariously though it were, the torch of life--hope
was dead and it was buried in a little white coffin. Only a
great, quiet love remained. I was a tired old man, and Carlotta
was to me an infinitely loved sister--or daughter--or
granddaughter even--so old did I feel. And when I raised her
from the fender-stool, and kissed the tears from her eyes, it was
as grandfatherly a kiss as had ever been given in this world.
The same old problem again. What the deuce to do with Carlotta?
Yet not quite the same: rather, what the deuce to do with
Carlotta and myself? In our strange relationship we were
inextricably bound together.
First, she needed sunshine--instead of the forlorn bleakness of
an English spring--and a change from this house of pain and
death. And then I, too, felt the need of wider horizons. London
had grown to be a nightmare city which I never entered.
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