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120 TRELAWNY'S LETTERS
If he cared for one woman more than another,
we believe that woman was Claire. She was
not good, but she has been more than sufficiently
reviled. For Trelawny that she was
let it
satisfy the vindictive-
beautiful sufficed ;
ness of virtue that she suffered horribly.
What precisely was the degree of their in-
timacy is not clear ; but, in view of Claire's
reputation and certain passages in these
letters, it is perhaps not unfair to suppose
that at any rate for a short time in the year
1822 she was his mistress. Be that as it may,
after Shelley's death they parted, and doubtless
it will be said she treated her lover ill. To us
it appears that he gave as good as he got.
She was mercenary, and he was inconstant.
If we read Letter XX aright, when she did
offer, after some months of prudent dalliance,
to live with him at Florence, he replied that
he had but 500 a year, which was not enough
for two. An establishment on the confines of
respectability was the last thing he desired.
Neither ever loved truly ; but Trelawny, for
a time, felt violent physical passion for the
woman whose head and shoulders remind us
of what dealers call a Giorgione. Such is the
story,
so far as we can deduce it from these
letters ; each, if our conjecture serve, was
partially satisfied, for in money matters Trelawny
always treated his lady handsomely,