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on top of him, will, in short do anything.
Now all this isn�t funny or affectionate.  It�s
decidedly dreary, and though Jim does not, perhaps,
confess it to himself, he must find it so.     He
is a gentleman, she emphatically not a lady.   Be-
sides these capers are unbecoming her age and one
cannot avoid a sense of the absurdity accruing.
I (and Haney too, I know) would infinitely prefer
quiet, sociable intellectual chat to all the boisterous
old-young-girlishnesses that could be extemporized.
I feel slow and stupid in their presence and
think how dreary it must be for Jim when we are
not there.     I do not doubt that the woman loves
him after her fashion, but she is self-centered.
He is �hers� � that�s her way of looking at it.  When
he had to go down south it was all how shall I
be able to get along in his absence� � I, I, I!  He
seems to recognized this, almost passively, only coming
out in opposition when some sentiment � not action �
provokes it.    I fancy she has all her own way and
would hate him if she didn�t.   Let her get alarm-
ed by the idea that this man is holding his own;
perhaps � oh horrors! � reckoning me up and not
entirely believing that I am the fascinating, gushing,
slap-dash, intellectual, admirable-in right-and-
still-more-admirable-when-wrong creature, there�d
be the devil to pay.    No man could live happily
with her who strove for � not the mastery � but