olfax this morning and what I feared might happen
has happened. Your mother, instead of going to Boston as you thought,
came to New York and saw him and, I fancy, my friend Winfield, too. She
cannot do me any harm in that direction, for my relationship with that
company does not depend on a salary, or a fixed income of any kind, but
she has done me infinite harm here. Frankly, I have lost my position. I
do not believe that would have come about except for other pressure with
which she had nothing to do, but her charges and complaints, coming on
top of opposition here on the part of someone else, has done what she
couldn't have done alone. Flower Face, do you know what that means? I
told you once that I had tied up all my spare cash in Blue Sea, which I
hoped would come to so much. It may, but the cutting off my salary here
means great changes for me there, unless I can make some other business
engagement immediately. I shall probably have to give up my apartment in
Riverside Drive and my automobile, and in other ways trim my sails to
meet the bad weather. It means that if you come to me, we should have to
live on what I can earn as an artist unless I should decide and be able
to find something else. When I came to Canada for you, I had some such
idea in mind, but since this thing has actually happened, you may think
differently. If nothing happens to my Blue Sea investment, there may be
an independent fortune some day in that. I can't tell, but that is a
long way off, and meanwhile, there is only this, and I don't know what
else your mother may do to my reputation. She appears to be in a very
savage frame of mind. You heard what she said at While-a-Way. She has
evidently gone back on that completely.

"Flower Face, I lay this all before you so that you may see how things
are. If you come to me it may be in the face of a faded reputation. You
must realize that there is a great difference between Eugene Witla,
Managing Publisher of the United Magazines Corporation, and Eugene
Witla, Artist. I have been very reckless and defiant in my love for you.
Because you are so lovely--the most perfect thing that I have ever
known, I have laid all on the altar of my affection. I would do it
again, gladly--a thousand times. Before you came, my life was a gloomy
thing. I thought I was living, but I knew in my heart that it was all a
dusty shell--a lie. Then you came, and oh, how I have lived! The nights,
the days of beautiful fancy. Sha