Should
the opportunity offer, she did not intend to win Graydon by angling
for him, by arts, blandishments, or one unmaidenly advance. She would
try to be so admirable that he would admire her, so true that he would
trust her, and so fascinating that he would woo her with a devotion
that would leave no chance for "equanimity" were it possible for
him to fail. If in her desperate weakness, in the chaos of her
first self-knowledge, she could hide her secret, she smiled at the
possibility of revealing it now that she had been schooled and trained
into strength and self-control.
In her brief letter of reply to Graydon she wrote:
"That I still exist and shall continue to live is proved by my one
trait which you regard as encouraging--curiosity. Please send me some
books that will tell me about Europe, or, rather, will present Europe
as nearly as possible in its real aspect. I may never travel, but am
foolish enough to imagine that I can see the world from the standpoint
of this sleepy old town."
"Poor little wraith!" said Graydon, as he read the words. "What
a queer, shadowy world her fancy will create, even from the most
realistic descriptions I can send her!" But he good-naturedly made
up a large bundle of books, in which fiction predominated, for he
believed that she would read nothing else.
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