What  an  odd  beginning,  I  often  thought  to  myself.  Scandal-
ous, perhaps,  in  one  so  young :  three  girls  in  as  many  years,
two  of  them  deeply  and  seriously  wounded  by  me.
"I  shall  write  to  her,"  I  thought.  "I  will  ask  her  to  come
down  here.  I  can't  stand  this.  She  is  too  lovely  and  precious
to  me.    It  is  cruel  to  leave  her  so. ' '

There  is  this  to  be  said  for  me  in  regard  to  my  not  writing
to  her :  I  was  uncertain  as  to  the  financial  practicability  of  it.
104  A  BOOK  ABOUT  MYSELF

In  Chicago  I  had  been  telling  her  of  my  excellent  position,
boasting  that  I  was  making  more  than  I  really  was.  So  long  as
I  was  there  and  not  married  the  pretense  could  easily  be  sus-
tained. Here,  three  hundred  miles  away,  where  she  would  and
could  not  come  unless  I  was  prepared  to  support  her,  it  was  a
different  matter.  To  ask  her  now  meant  a  financial  burden
which  I  did  not  feel  able,  or  at  least  willing,  to  assume.  No
doubt  I  could  have  starved  her  on  twenty  dollars  a  week;
had  I  been  desperately  swayed  by  love  I  would  have  done  so.
