Forgive me for not answering before.

I had asked some people for next Sunday; I was hoping they would refuse. But no, this morning they will be ‘so pleased to come.’ So M. and I regretfully cannot. I do want to see you both soon and really talk. It seems, I suppose it isn't really, so long since we have had time to talk.

What I always want to do with you both is to share the event and then to share the impressions of it—the ‘afterwards.’ If only there were more time, but it seems to go faster and faster. One is so conscious of it sometimes.

I feel as though we were trying to talk against the noise and the speed of the train—trying to hear each other— trying to convey by a look, a gesture, what we long to talk about for hours—days—What a story one could write about a train journey across strange country—A party of people with the carriage to themselves, travelling together, and two of them who have something they must say to each other. Can you imagine it? the impatience, the excitement, the extraordinary nearness of them all to one another—the meals in the restaurant car, “the new warm plates seemed to come flying through the air”—and the preparing for the night—those who do sleep—those who don't—My God! there's such a novel to be written there; will there be time to write it?