In case she should again hesitate and not post the letter, she
gave it to Domenico to post; for if she did not write now there would
be no time left at all. Half the month at San Salvatore was over.
Even if Frederick started directly he got the letter, which of course
he wouldn't be able to do, what with packing and passport, besides not
being in a hurry to come, he couldn't arrive for five days.
Having done it, Rose wished she hadn't. He wouldn't come. He
wouldn't bother to answer. And if he did answer, it would just be
giving some reason which was not true, and about being too busy to get
away; and all that had been got by writing to him would be that she
would be more unhappy than before.
What things one did when one was idle. This resurrection of
Frederick, or rather this attempt to resurrect him, what was it but the
result of having nothing whatever to do? She wished she had never come
away on a holiday. What did she want with holidays? Work was her
salvation; work was the only thing that protected one, that kept one
steady and one's values true. At home in Hampstead, absorbed and busy,
she had managed to get over Frederick, thinking of him latterly only
with the gentle melancholy with which one thinks of some one once loved
but long since dead; and now this place, idleness in this soft place,
had thrown her back to the wretched state she had climbed so carefully
out of years ago.
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