Fisher over
breakfast, to the rocks by the water's edge where she and Lotty had sat
the first day. Frederick by now had got her letter. To-day, if he
were like Mr. Wilkins, she might get a telegram from him.
She tried to silence the absurd hope by jeering at it. Yet--if
Mr. Wilkins had telegraphed, why not Frederick? The spell of San
Salvatore lurked even, it seemed, in notepaper. Lotty had not dreamed
of getting a telegram, and when she came in at lunch-time there it was.
It would be too wonderful if when she went back at lunch-time she found
one there for her too. . .
Rose clasped her hands tight round her knees. How passionately
she longed to be important to somebody again--not important on
platforms, not important as an asset in an organization, but privately
important, just to one other person, quite privately, nobody else to
know or notice. It didn't seem much to ask in a world so crowded with
people, just to have one of them, only one out of all the millions, to
oneself. Somebody who needed one, who thought of one, who was eager to
come to one--oh, oh how dreadfully one wanted to be precious!
All the morning she sat beneath the pine-tree by the sea. Nobody
came near her. The great hours passed slowly; they seemed enormous.
But she wouldn't go up before lunch, she would give the telegram time
to arrive.
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