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Show Letter From Los Angeles By JOHN E. DE KOSI ; C McClure Newoawr Svndicate. I U'NU Service. M' Y DEAR Lona I The sight again of this crazy scribble will probably startle you. ! Even little things were forever I sources of infinite surprise and de-j de-j light to you. Surely it will mean something something more than the mere commonplace, my darling to realize that it is indeed I that have at last come back to you . . . And yet, dear, it is no easy task for me to swallow the bitter pill of my pride and come to you in such humble fashion. If there were another an-other manner of approach, less foreign for-eign to my nature, more flattering to my pride. I assure you I would have found it. Heaven only knows. Lona, the million black nights I have spent in futile search! Simply, Lona I love you. My dear, with even a continent between us, I can vision the tears welling in your wondrous eyes. 1 can feel, too, the sweet, sympathetic sympathet-ic determination to come to me at once, believing that I am still no one but myself, but caring only that I have come to you. How easily swayed by sweetness you can be, I know-; I have always known. Many times I have taken advantage of you thus. But now you must not think that I am merely trying to touch your heart, your feelings. Heaven again only knows the many times I have refrained from doing so in the past year! I swore to myself my-self that I would come to you only when I could command your respect re-spect as well as your love; and I have fought myself these weary long months to accomplish accom-plish this. And I have succeeded. I. am no longer the weak, ir responsible boy you once knew; I have lost my arrogance and conceit. My dear, can you remember a year ago? Can you remember the night we parted? We had been somewhere and you had discovered my trifling intimacy with Laurette. We quarreled all the way home. "It's no use, Nickie," you said, "we might as well finish everything. There never really could be anything any-thing between us, anyway. I- love you very dearly, Nickie. I shall always al-ways love you; but I can never respect re-spect you. You're all that I despise in a man. You're unstable and indifferent, in-different, cynical, egotistical, irresponsible. ir-responsible. And all when you could be so different. That's what I love in you. I suppose, what you could be. Or perhaps it's only what I think you could be. It doesn't matter. I only know I mean it this time. I shan't come back again, Nickie. Good-by." Outside, in the car, I sat for hours, thinking, the delicious sensations sensa-tions of sadness and futility dripping drip-ping delightfully over my mind and heart. I was the misunderstood martyr mar-tyr and oh, Lord! how I relished it. I literally bathed myself in sorrowful sorrow-ful contemplation, rubbing the bit- ter irritant of my woes almost gleefully glee-fully into my spiritual sores, until, un-til, finally, so pregnant was I with my own sadistic illusions, I decided to go away. I would become a vagabond, vaga-bond, a derelict on the face of life's follies. Fortunately, however, (or perhaps unfortunately) before I could embark em-bark upon my course of degradation degrada-tion and decay I received a very lucrative lu-crative offer to arrange music for motion picture musicals. It would be necessary to go to Hollywood. This, Lona, as you can readily see, was a splendid opportunity for me to retain my ease and comfort while still, in a certain sense, appeasing my primary impulse of vagabondage. vagabond-age. I accepted. Hollywood, however, was not for me. I lost myself satisfactorily for a time, to be sure, but came gradually grad-ually to realize but one thing how right you had been about me. I began be-gan to think solidly for the first time in my life. I began to understand, under-stand, too, your distaste for the insincere in-sincere type of music I had been wont to compose. And, finally, I came to realize what you had meant by love and respect. It was then that I threw over my job, left Hollywood, took a little place by the sea at Carmel and really began to work. Oh, Lord, Lona, how I worked! Night and day; day and night. I sweated music. Real music out of the depths of my soul! A thousand times I faltered, fal-tered, fell. But always, thinking of you, fought inexorably on. And now Well, now, Lona, there is little to say except that my Sea Suite: A Symphony In Sorrow, is to be presented pre-sented the fifth of next month at Carnegie hall. I shall be waiting for you at the far left side of the lobby. Nickie. Slowly she folded the letter and handed it to her husband. She watched his face as he read. He was a big young man with pleasant eyes and mouth. Watching her husband, hus-band, she thought of Nickie. She thought of his hard, cynical mouth, his sullen dark eyes. She remembered, remem-bered, too, in an instant, innumerable innumer-able petty evasions, deceptions, unreliabilities. un-reliabilities. Even this letter what more was it than a dramatic exhibition ex-hibition of ego? Her husband looked up, myriad queries rampant in his troubled eyes. She took the letter from her husband's hus-band's lax fingers, and, smiling, tore the thin white sheets into countless count-less small pieces. |