Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/256



HEN a man is thinking epics it is difficult for him to compose an ordinary letter. Beresford leaned back in his chair frowning. For fully an hour he had been engaged upon the unequal struggle. On the table before him lay a number of discarded sheets of note-paper. Some broke off suddenly at the second line, others ran to the end of the first page, whilst one had actually turned the corner and showed two lines written upon the second page.

Had ever man such a letter to write in all the world before? Why write at all? Just because he had behaved like an ass, there was no need to make a fuss about it, as if it were a reduction in his golf-handicap; yet he must tell her, at least

"Damn!"

With a great air of decision he seized the pen and, snatching a clean sheet of paper from the rack, wrote:—

"Dear Rain-Girl."

Then he paused. That was where he always paused. There were innumerable sheets of note-paper on the table that testified to the fact. He 252