But her companion was less facile in his mental changes, and did not respond to this quick transition from banter to sentiment.
"I believe," he replied, "that it is wholly and entirely—poetry. It is not a bad description of Burleigh Blood."
She sprang up impetuously from the seat into which she had sunk, and began to pace restlessly up and down.
"But there is some snap to that sort of love," she said: "one can believe in its earnestness."
"And in its unreasoning exaction," he returned. "It must be very uncomfortable."
"But I'd rather be hated than comfortably loved: it would amount to more. I hate placidity. I think love should be so strong that one surrenders one's whole being to it."
"You are like the rest of your sex," he began. But at that moment a paper fluttered out of the book whose leaves he had been turning carelessly as they talked. "Very apropos," he said, taking it up. "This is the work of a college-friend of mine. I trust you'll pardon my reading it:—
"While daisies swing on their slender stalks,
As when the spring was new;
While golden-rod into bloom has burst,
As summer quite were through;
Then 'tis ah! and alack! and well-a-day!
For the time when dreams were true:
'Tis best to be off with the old love
Before you are on with the new!
"For happy with either,
Is happy with neither,
And love is hard to tame:
The old love's grieving,
The new's believing,
Both feed the treacherous flame.
"Clarissa's sad crying,
Dorinda's sweet sighing,
Alike my comfort fears;
Fain would I ease me
From things that tease me,—
Dorinda's doubting, Clarissa's tears.