sh;a wild affair! I haven’t had such a good time for ages, even though A. D. and the Prince didn’t stay.

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PRINCE BORIS TO POLLY

Rome,

February.

Mon ange, je t’adore! Please not fish—no flirt, is it?—with others. You are the most extraordinary and nicest little flirt I never saw! Alas! but I suffer,—a sad inhabitant of this valley of tears, and because you fish not with me alone.

I am curious to know you better. You have not told me enough of your life. What you think is more interesting to me even than what you do, because the secret agitations of the heart are more revealing than the tumult of exterior life. I love to travel, but there is no strange country which I should so like to visit[Pg 18] as this mysterious region which is your heart. I love novels, but there is no wonderful novel which I so much should like to read as the closed book which is your soul.

Do pity me who walk alone the desert of life. I want to take interest in every one of your thoughts and all of your sorrows. I should like to be Adam and give you all my ribs. I mind I have twenty-four, for making twenty-four girls, all just like you! And I would keep them all and not let them run in the world without me.

I had today one great excitement. The postman brought me a letter in a woman’s handwriting. It was blue, blue like the sky, and had the perfume of flowers. I felt at last had come the love letter from you I have been waiting for so long. My heart throbbed, my brain was on fire, but, alas! it was from another—not from a hummingbird, but a gray Miss Mouse.

I am very furious—my servants have never seen me so terrible.