Page:Emily Climbs.pdf/40

 “‘Must you always go when Teddy calls?’ asked Dean.

“I nodded and explained,

“‘He only calls like that when he wants me and I have promised I will always go if I possibly can.’

“‘ want you !’ said Dean. ‘I came up this evening on purpose to read with you.’

“Suddenly I felt very unhappy. I wanted to stay with Dean dreadfully, and yet I felt as if I must go to Teddy. Dean looked at me piercingly. Then he shut up.

“‘Go,’ he said.

“I went—but things seemed spoiled, somehow.

“May 10, 19—

“I have been reading three books Dean lent me this week. One was like a rose garden—very pleasant, but just a little too sweet. And one was like a pine wood on a mountain—full of balsam and tang—I loved it, and yet it filled me with a sort of despair. It was written so beautifully—I can write like that, I feel sure. And one—it was just like a pig-sty. Dean gave me that one by mistake. He was very angry with himself when he found it out—angry and distressed.

“‘Star—Star—I would have given you a book like that—my confounded carelessness—forgive me. That book is a faithful picture of one world—but not your world, thank God—nor any world you will ever be a citizen of. Star, promise me you will forget that book.’

“‘I’ll forget it if I can,’ I said.

“But I don’t know if I can. It was so ugly. I have not been so happy since I read it. I feel as if my hands were soiled somehow and I couldn’t wash them clean. And I have another queer feeling, as, shutting me into a new world I don’t quite understand or like, but through which I must travel.

“Tonight I tried to write a description of Dean in my Jimmy-book of character sketches. But I didn’t succeed.