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159 STRAIT IS THE GATE

must be a jest. I expected you to step out from behind every bush. But no! you have really gone. Thank you. “I spent the rest of the day haunted by the constant presence of thoughts, which I should like to communicate to you, and by the peculiar and very definite fear that if I did not, I should have the feeling later on of having failed in my duty towards you, of having deserved your reproaches ... “In the first moments of your stay at Fongueusemare it was astonishment that I felt - soon after it was uneasiness — at the strange contentment that filled my whole being in your presence; 'a contentment so great,' you said, 'that I desire nothing beyond!' Alas! that is just what makes me uneasy ... “I am afraid, my friend, lest you should misunderstand me. Above all, I am afraid lest you should take for subtlety (Oh, how mistaken a subtlety!) what is merely the expression of the most violent feeling of my soul. “ 'If it did not suffice, it would not be happiness,' you said, do you remember? And I did not know what to answer. No, Jerome, it does not suffice us. Jerome, it must not suffice us. I cannot take this delicious contentment for the true one. Did

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