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either he must break with her now or accept the responsibility of a
definite seduction. Her family's encouraging attitude precipitated his
decision - one evening when Mr.. Karger knocked discreetly at the
library door to announce that he had left a bottle of old brandy in the
dining-room, Anson felt that life was hemming him in. That night he
wrote her a short letter in which he told her that he was going on his
vacation, and that in view of all the circumstances they had better
meet no more.
It was June. His family had closed up the house and gone to the
country, so he was living temporarily at the Yale Club. I had heard
about his affair with Dolly as it developed – accounts salted with
humor, for he despised unstable women, and granted them no place in
the social edifice in which he believed – and when he told me that
night that he was definitely breaking with her I was glad. I had seen
Dolly here and there, and each time with a feeling of pity at the
hopelessness of her struggle, and of shame at knowing so much about
her that I had no right to know. She was what is known as "a pretty
little thing," but there was a certain recklessness which rather
fascinated me. Her dedication to the goddess of waste would have
been less obvious had she been less spirited – she would most
certainly throw herself away, but I was glad when I heard that the
sacrifice would not be consummated in my sight.
Anson was going to leave the letter of farewell at her house
next morning. It was one of the few houses left open in the Fifth
Avenue district, and he knew that the Kargers, acting upon erroneous
information from Dolly, had foregone a trip abroad to give their
daughter her chance. As he stepped out the door of the Yale Club into
Madison Avenue the postman passed him, and he followed back
inside. The first letter that caught his eye was in Dolly's hand.
He knew what it would be - a lonely and tragic monologue, full
of the reproaches he knew, the invoked memories, the "I wonder if's"
– all the immemorial intimacies that he had communicated to Paula
Legendre in what seemed another age. Thumbing over some bills, he
brought it on top again and opened it. To his surprise it was a short,
somewhat formal note, which said that Dolly would be unable to go
to the country with him for the week-end, because Perry Hull from
Chicago had unexpectedly come to town. It added that Anson had
brought this on himself: " – if I felt that you loved me as I love you I