Chapter XXII

As soon as we were established in Paris I began to look about for some position whereby I could add to my funds and occupy my mind. I tried to make myself feel that it was joy to be near Juno and see that she was safe.

The position which was open for me was in connection with a religious organization about which I could write an eye-opener of an article, but that for another time. A young Scotch girl was giving up the work to be married. She stayed on for a few weeks to show me the methods. We were constantly together through the day and were naturally interested in each other. Scotty, as we will call her, confided in me about her coming marriage. She had become engaged in pique, because the man whom she really loved had not proposed to her, though she felt sure he loved her. I felt sorry for her, as she was going into a state where there was little chance of happiness. After talking things over freely with me she decided that it would be fairer to the young man if she broke with him then than after the marriage, so break it off she did. She had become very fond of me, but while she was a dear girl I knew that I could not care for her as she seemed to care for me. Still, I was glad in a way to have someone for an interested and I will say interesting friend when Juno should be married, as she expected to be the next summer.

Of course Juno and I roomed together, but we had two beds and there was never any approach to sexual relations.

I sensed that things were not going quite to Juno’s mind in her love affairs, but she never confided any of her worries to me. In the meantime, Scotty was with me more and more and we had little excursions together. I felt that Juno was absorbed with Jack and was quite out of any reckoning with my doings. Christmas came and went, and then Juno did express chagrin at not receiving a gift of some sort from Jack, as she had taken great care that he should receive her token of affection on time. She waited until she was convinced that he had ignored her at Christmas, and then calmly announced to me that she had broken off her engagement and wanted my love back again.

I told Juno that Scotty had decided not to marry and that, as she had taken up other work in Paris, she and I had decided to live together after Juno was married. I simply would not give her up and did not. My faith in Juno was gone, though in spite of that fact there was no one who could ever take her place in my heart. Juno was very unhappy and suffered with jealousy and all the agony which that state of mind calls forth.

Scotty had invited me to go to her home in Scotland with her for our summer vacation and I had planned to do so, as I did not care to be in Paris when Jack should arrive. When we found that there was to be no wedding, Scotty invited Juno to go to Scotland with us, and she expected to do so. She thought to get even with me in gaining a friend. There was a little Irish girl who came often to the rest rooms where I was engaged and of whom I had often spoken as being one of my pets. Juno was attracted by her and set about to win her love.

We had about us at that time quite a colony of English, Scotch, and Irish girls who were in Paris earning their living, as it was considered quite a disgrace for them to go into any sort of work at home. “It wasn’t done.” Oh! the chapter or the book I could write of the experiences of these carefully brought up girls in Gay Paree which they confided to me! But that is another story.

It seemed strange to see Juno in the role of the wooer, but she succeeded in capturing “Irish,” as we will call the young girl who fell for her charms. Had that been a friendship such as was that between Scotty and me, I would not have been affected by it, but I was soon convinced that they were indulging in the closer type of intimacy and I in turn was very unhappy.

All of this seems ridiculous and weak to me now, but as I am trying to give a true description of our sexual love, it has to be gone over.

When at its best, as was ours for so many years, I still believe the love between two women to be the highest type now known. At the same time, I believe that it may lead to the most intense suffering known to woman.

As we were about to go to Scotland, Juno announced that she preferred staying in Paris until Irish had her vacation and went home (where, by the way, Juno was not invited to visit). Then Juno would join me somewhere in England, on a promised visit with some old New York friends who were living outside of London.

I met Juno at the appointed time in Dieppe. While we enjoyed in a way some of the attractions of that place, the time ended in a violent quarrel and we decided to part company, she going back to Paris and I to our friends in London, to wait until Scotty should join me for our return to Paris.

I had a wonderful visit with Scotty at her delightful home, and as her father and two brothers each had cars, we toured much of that glorious country. We were feted by all their friends and relations, and played golf every day. It was my first experience with that game, but as I had always been so fond of any outdoor sports, I took to golf naturally and loved it.

I knew that Scotty was still in love with the one who was so slow in proposing. I talked with her a great deal on the subject and showed her the fallacy of the awful reserve she had been taught to hold for men. When it was time for me to go to meet Juno, Scotty went to visit the sister of the man, and when she wrote that they were engaged I felt that my friendship with her had not been in vain. She was to go back to Paris for another year, however.

I made my visit to my friends, who were rather of the type of the artist who was with Phil during my first months, and I was not very happy. I was glad for the time to come for me to meet Scotty and go back to Paris, where I had determined not even to see Juno.

Scotty and I had our apartment together, and Juno and Irish were together. There were constant appeals for me to let Juno come to see me, but I positively refused. At last Irish came and begged me to go to Juno, as she was really very ill about my being away. Again my mother heart got the better of me and I went.

Because of her entreaties together with those of Irish, who said she could never fill my place, and because Scotty also urged me to go back to her, I did consent to take an apartment again with Juno. But why go into the agony of the days which followed? I knew that Juno was deceiving me in her relations with Irish and I was again thrown into the agonies of jealousy. I had no wish to resume any physical relations with Juno myself, but I could not bear the thought that some other woman was taking that sacred place.

Realizing the futility of trying to patch up the severed love, I finally decided again to put the ocean between us and to come home to our little love cottage, which was vacant at this time. Juno left everything as to our house to me, as she said she would never go back there to live.

When I arrived in New York there were many friends to see and, among others, were Flo and the Professor, who were established in Brooklyn. Our meeting was very formal and circumspect. I was in no mood for anything verging on the sentimental. Flo was in a great dilemma about her father, who had lost his eyesight and was in a hospital in New York, as there was no member of their family who could look after him. He had been a very brilliant lawyer, but his mind was becoming somewhat cloudy, though he was still in good physical condition. It was suggested that he should come to live with me in the country. I had nothing in view in a business way, so I agreed to take him, with a man servant who would valet him.

The home coming was very sad, and I was glad to find a lot of work to do to get the house in order.

Before I had left home for Europe, one of my young girl friends who had the same first name as I was a frequent visitor at our house. She had singled me out as the object of her adoration. She spent hours with me while Jack and Juno were away driving and walking, as I was suffering deeply and she was very sympathetic and dear. She played and sang very sweetly, which soothed me. Her little head (she was twenty years old) was puzzling about all sorts of things which she dared not ask her mother. She told me astonishing things which were going on in that little town, but she had steered clear of them all, so she said. She told me of all sorts of things which would stir her deeply and made her want something, she did not know what. She was considered very delicate, and at first I wondered whether she knew more than she told, but I was convinced that she was really innocent.

There was a case where so many would say in a sneering way, “she needs a man to straighten her out,” doing nothing to relieve her. Doctors know this, but they dare not tell parents, lest they lose their jobs.

When I left for Europe this child was heartbroken. She wrote me a dear little love letter to read each day of the voyage. I never forgot that kindness, for it helped me a lot. She was equally glad when I returned and had the house opened for me and flowers everywhere, though it was early spring.

I had a dear welcome from all our old friends, and they all tried to help me forget Juno.

Juno and I wrote to each other, but the letters were about ordinary things of mutual interest—nothing verging on love. I saw Jack occasionally and he seemed a very sad and subdued young man. Although the Father—the principal of the school—knew of this man’s propensities with boys, he was still retained in the school. The head master, however, had been dismissed, as there was an open scandal in connection with the friend who had persuaded us to go to that town to live.

Our home was restored to its former attractiveness and the old gentleman arrived with the fine colored man whom I had engaged before I left New York. I was able to make him very comfortable and happy. Flo and the Professor and the baby boy took a furnished house near me for the summer, and while there were various efforts on the part of the Professor to resume relationships, I squelched them at once, as I felt that there were certain parts of me which had died and I had no thought of them.

One thing happened that summer which may be of interest in connection with the subject of which I am writing.

It will be remembered that in the finishing school in New York there was one girl who interested us deeply, the one who was “disgraced in life” when her room-mate gave a smoker. We had always kept up the friendship through letters, though we had not seen her since she left school. She knew that I had returned from Europe alone, for which she was very sorry, as she had always thought ours to be an ideal friendship. She was in the East visiting and wanted to come to make me a visit. Of course I was delighted to have her come.

I met her at the station and found her the same enthusiastic, lovable girl as of old, yet there seemed to be something different in her face. Possibly she had experienced some sorrow or possibly it was caused by the added years.

When we got to her rooms she put her arms about me and gave me a very long and passionate kiss. I was astonished. She then burst forth with an emotional expression of the love she had always had for me, which she had never dared to confess on account of the friendship between Juno and me. She knew now that I would be horrified to know that hers was more than an ordinary love and would probably send her home. She tried in an embarrassing way to describe the passion she felt for me. I just let her go on and on. I really could not have got a word in edgewise if I had tried. She told me of affairs she had had in the school, where such things were the rule of the day and were called “crushes,” as they always have been and are today. She told me of the efforts she had made to reach the heights that some of the girls had described, but she knew she must be different from other girls and she felt that it might be because she did not really love them.

I thought in pity of her dilemma and struggle, seeing so well my own experience duplicated. She begged to sleep with me, but it was a talk fest rather than sleep.

I tried to tell her that my love for her was not a physical thing and that I had no desire to have her touch me. She felt, however, that she could never be happy again without me and was making her plans to go home and then to return and live with me. She was bright and entertaining and would have been a wonderfully cheerful little pal, but the sex part did not appeal to me.

Her mother died very soon after she got home, and the poor child was broken-hearted. She was obliged to remain and care for the family and carry on in her mother’s place. Thus ended that episode. We wrote occasionally, but in time we drifted so far apart in our interests that we have not written since. I judged that she was to be married and I hope lived happily ever after.

Towards the close of the summer, the old gentleman gently failed and soon went peacefully to his last sleep.