fall into the tone that accords best with the temperament of the person to whom one is writing!
I was rather dreading an interview with poor Freddy. To be misunderstood by him would have been really rather tragic. But even here, good fortune pursued me. Alice's letter breaking off the engagement had been written in such mysterious terms, that it was quite impossible for the simple Freddy to make head or tail of it. So that when he appeared, just after my letter (which had infuriated her)—Alice threw herself into his arms, begging him to forgive her; pretending—women have these subtleties—that it had been a boutade about some trifle.
But I think Freddy had a suspicion that I had been "mashed," as he would say, on his fiancée, and thought vaguely that I had done something rather splendid in going away.
If he had only stopped to think, he would have realised that there was nothing very extraordinary in "leaving England" in the beginning of August; and he knew I had arranged to spend the summer holidays in France with De Verney. Still, he fancies I acted nobly. Alice doesn't.
And so I resigned myself, seeing, indeed, that Grief was the one thing life meant to deny me. And on the golden sands, with the gay striped bathers of Trouville, I was content to linger with laughter on my lips, seeking for Sorrow no more.
