The Faun Man commenced to tune his mandolin. “Ever been in love, Peter?”
The boy reddened. He didn’t know why he reddened. Perhaps he was proud that he should be asked such a question. Perhaps he was a little angry because—well, because everyone he had ever met seemed a little ashamed of love—everyone except the Faun Man. So he answered, “Only with my little sister.”
The man laughed. “That isn’t what I meant. That’s different. Love’s something that burns and freezes. It fills you and leaves you hungry. It makes you forget all other affections and keeps you always remembering itself. It makes you kindest when it’s most cruel. It demands everything you possess; and you’re most eager to give when it gives you nothing back. It’s hell and it’s heaven. No, I’ll tell you what it is. It’s a small child pulling the wings off a fly, and then crying because it’s sorry, and didn’t know what it was doing. Ah, Peter, Peter, you haven’t met love yet.” He bent forward and tapped him on the arm. “Be wise. Run away when you see love coming.”
Peter felt embarrassed. The Faun Man closed one eye and watched him—watched how the sun splashed through the creeping shadows and fell on the boy’s flushed face and curly hair. “Here’s a little song about love,” he said. “A very high class song, written not improbably by the poet Shelley.”
He struck the strings of the mandolin, playing a little jingling introduction and then commenced, lifting his long face to the window in the thatch, singing through his nose and burlesquing all that had happened:
“If yer gal ain’t all yer thought ‘er,
And fer everyfing yer’ve bought ‘er
She don’t seem to care a ‘appenny pot o’ glue;
If she tells yer she won’t miss yer
And she doesn’t want ter kiss yer,