Page 160 - Life of Gertrude Bell

142 GERTRUDE BELL
‘A line, my dear. I have some minutes and every minute I miss
you.’
‘I love you — docs it do any good out there in the desert? Is it
less vast, less lonely, like the far edge of life? someday perhaps, in
a whisper, in a kiss, I will tell you ... ’
‘It’s magnificent; love like this is life itself... This shall go to
Lorimer in Baghdad. Oh, where are you, where arc you? And I
too go away in a few days.’
‘Well, I go. Africa draws me; I know I shall have things to try
for, to climb over, to get round, to win; more probably to lose.
But of them I scarcely think: it is only that I love you, Gertrude,
and shall not see you ... 9
‘But, I have a tiling to ask—wire to me—British Minister, Addis
Ababa—your safe arrival. Safe Baghdad. How immensely happy I
shall be to see it. Ma salaam. Dick.’