How long I've sat over this letter I don't know, just dreaming of you and thinking of Venice so many months ago. Now it is Spring and warm and lovely; the flowers are in bloom and you are not here. Will any of my dreams come true, I wonder?
Sweetheart, on coming home I found a letter from the new Secretary who is leaving Washington for Rome even before the Ambassador. I am going to pack up at once and be ready to start as soon as he arrives. Now you can settle on some date towards the end of May for the wedding.
Hurrah! Gilet shall go around and get my bills in to pay them, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker. There must be some official cards printed with a little p.p.c. in the lower left-hand corner ready to leave. I must look up the dates of sailings of the ships for home, say goodbye, give a lot of tips to porters, ushers, chambermaids, _sommeliers_, and go to the station and so to you!
Peppi, who, I believe, is more and more hopelessly in love every day with the lady Lisa, got up a party for her, and invited some painters, sculptors, a few Dips and their wives, all to drive out for tea at the excavation of the Villa Olivia. We met at the foot of our Spanish Steps, and drove through the Porto del Populo across the Campagna, along the valley of the Tiber by Cività Castellana, to the Villa standing on a hill. After our tea and little cakes, we romped through a wild Virginia reel. I danced with Mona while Peppi, sick with jealousy, stared sombrely at me as if he wished to tuck a _stiletto_ beneath my fifth rib. It was a relief to come away, though, for the lady's gray eyes glittered when she asked me what further news you had deigned to give me regarding your flirtation with the Prince. I trust my Polly.
You ask me what I do--and what I think of North America? I busy and do much work, travel and not think of any girls but you. Men I see in street, without mustache, wear glasses, have dentist fill mouth with gold, rush about madly and speak, "What say?" and "Sure!" and "Do tell," wear celluloid collar and ready-made suit and hang big cigar from corner of mouth and--spit! Excuse my funs, dear.
People are lavish if you are Prince, turn somersaults on top of each other to entertain you, but of foreigners suspicious more or less. All American women have too much freedom and know too well how to flirt, and too pretty they are for the heart of a man. Most of the men are uneducate in art and languages and such things; they only know business and politics.