Though yer’ve cuddled ‘er from ‘Ammersmif ter Kew;
If yer little side excurshiums
To lands of pink nasturtiums
Don’t make ‘er ‘arf so soft as they make you,
Why, never get down-’earted,
For that’s the way love started—
Adam ended wery ‘appy—and that’s true.”
He had scarcely finished, when the golden woman came to the lattice in the thatch. She stood framed there, with the whiteness of the room as a background. Her hands were crossed upon her breast. The shining masses, wrapped about her head and forehead, accentuated her vivid paleness. She looked as idealized as a girl on canvas, put there by her lover in a bid for immortality. She glanced this way and that to discover the Faun Man. She leant out, listening and searching. She could not detect him.
“Lorie,” she cried, addressing the garden, “you’re unkind. I hate you when you’re flippant.” She waited for him to answer. Nothing but silence, and the little river whispering to itself beyond the hedge. “Lorie, I suppose you think I’ve got no right to talk about being flippant, because—— But I’m not flippant. I like you, and—— But I can’t help myself if God made me as I am.” Again she waited. “Lorie, I’ll be awfully nice to you if you’ll only show yourself. I do so want to see——”
The Faun Man stood up ecstatically, with his arms stretched out to her. It was absurd to call him a man. The pollen of flowers had smirched his face and hands. His head was bare, and the hair had fallen forward over his forehead.