Secure, Orion walks her way.
The Cyprian loads, presents, makes fire.
He falls. ’Tis Venus all entire
Attached to her recumbent prey.
Chelifer repeated the verses to himself and was not displeased. The second stanza was a little too “quaint,” perhaps; a little too—how should he put it?—too Walter-Crane’s-picture-book. One might omit it altogether, perhaps; or substitute, if one could think of it, something more perfectly in harmony with the silver-age, allusive elegance of the rest. As for the last verse, that was really masterly. It gave Racine his raison d’être; if Racine had never existed, it would have been necessary to invent him, merely for the sake of those last lines.
He falls. ’Tis Venus all entire
Attached to her recumbent prey.
Chelifer lingered over them in ecstasy. He became aware, all at once, that Mrs. Aldwinkle was addressing herself to him more directly. From inharmoniously Aeolian, her voice became once more articulate.
“That’s what you’re like,” she was saying. “Tell me I’m right. Say I understand you.”
“Perhaps,” said Chelifer, smiling.