Page:Confessions of a wife (IA confessionsofwif00adamiala).pdf/41

that was my girl friend, Ina. She died. Sometimes I think she died because she understood too much—everything and everybody. People wasted their hearts on her; they told her everything, and went bankrupt in confidence as soon as they came near her.

"Job and I are sitting in the library, and Father has gone to bed. You have been gone half an hour. The June-beetles are butting their heads against the screens on account of the lights, and Job barks and bounces at them every time they hit. The moths are out there, too, clinging to the wire netting, and flying about stealthily—beautiful little beings, some of them, transparent as spirits, and as indifferent to fate as men and women. How joyously they court death! To look at them one would think it quite a privilege.

"I found the roses when you left, and the poems, out in the hall on the hat-tree. You are very thoughtful and kind, and, to tell the truth, I don't mind being remembered. I have never read much of Edwin Arnold. I shall begin with the long one about Radha and Krishna. I have turned the leaves a little. I must say I don't think Krishna was in the least worthy of a girl like that. Why did she waste herself on such a fellow?