He drew a small note book from one of his pockets, and turned its pages.
“There it is, you see—all zigzagged across the paper—like the little zigzag path in the dusk. But both came straight to you.”
“Oh! is this your book of poems?” eagerly.
“It is one of them. I have others. Six, to be exact. Two are with a friend in St. Petersburg. He is translating them. One is in my hut. Another is in London, where it will soon be published. And the best—the first, the youngest, and dearest—the one I’m proudest of—is buried in a biscuit tin in Idaho.”
“Oh!” she cried, thrilled. “To think you’ve wandered through all those places—Prince Run-Away.”
“To come at last to you—Madam Make-Believe.”
He looked at her so long that her lashes drooped and her colour came and went.
“Read it to me—my poem”—she said softly, and leaned over the manuscript. Her hair touched his cheek, as he also leaned over to descry the words he had pencilled in the dark.
“If I were a ship on the deep seas flowing,
If I were a ship on the waters blue,
I’d go sailing round the world of women
To the harbour lights and the ports of You.
“If I were a cloud in the high air blowing,
If I were a cloud in the sapphire skies,
Oh, I’d break my rest in the orbs of heaven,
To be the mist in your young, blue eyes.