I + 

Now was I come near to the summit of my desires, and advantageously betrothed to a girl with whom I was, in any event, almost in love; but I presently ascertained, to my dismay, that sophisticated, “proper” little Rosalind was thoroughly in love with me, and always in the back of my mind this knowledge worried me. + 

Imprimis, she persisted in calling me Jaques, which was uncomfortably reminiscent of that time wherein I was called Jack. Yet my objection to this silly nickname was a mischancy matter to explain. There was no way of telling her that I disliked anything which reminded me of Gillian Hardress, without telling more about Gillian than would be pleasant to tell. So Rosalind went on calling me Jaques; and I was compelled to put up with a trivial and unpremeditated, but for all that a daily, annoyance; and I fretted under it. + 

Item, she insisted on presenting me with all sorts of expensive knickknacks, and being childishly grieved when I remonstrated. + 

“But I have the money,” Rosalind would say, “and you haven’t. So why shouldn’t I? And besides, it’s really only selfishness on my part, because I like doing things for you, and if you liked doing things for me, Jaques, you’d understand.” + 

So I would eventually have to swear that I did like “doing things” for her; and it followed⁠—somehow⁠—that in consequence she had a perfect right to give me anything she wanted to. + 

And this too fretted me, mildly, all the summer I spent at Birnam Beach with Rosalind and with the opulent friends of Rosalind’s aunt from St. Louis.⁠ ⁠… They were a queer lot. They all looked so unspeakably new; their clothes were spick and span, and as expensive as possible, but that was not it; even in their bathing suits these middle-aged people⁠—they were mostly middle-aged⁠—seemed to have been very recently finished, like animated waxworks of middle-aged people just come from the factory. And they spent money in a continuous careless way that frightened me. + 

But I was on my very best, most dignified behavior; and when Aunt Lora presented me as “one of the Lichfield Townsends, you know,” these brewers and breweresses appeared to be properly impressed. One of them⁠—actually⁠—“supposed that I had a coat-of-arms”; which in Lichfield would be equivalent to “supposing” that a gentleman possessed a pair of trousers. But they were really very thoughtful about never letting me pay for anything; in this regard there seemed afoot a sort of friendly conspiracy. + 

So the summer passed pleasantly enough; and we bathed, and held hands in the moonlight, and danced at the Casino, and rode the merry-go-round, and played ping-pong, and read Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall⁠—which was much better, I told everybody, than that idiotic George Glock book, The Imperial Votaress. And we drank interminable suisses, and it was all very pleasant. + 

Yet always in the rear of my mind was stirring restively the instinct to get back to my writing; and these sedately frolicsome benevolent people⁠—even Rosalind⁠—plainly thought that “writing things” was just the unimportant foible of an otherwise fine young fellow. + 