"Then I should like to kill the woman!... Mrs. Varick, will you pardon me if I read you ... a few lines which indignation com——yes, combined with reverence—actual reverence—inspired me to write after reading those disgraceful statements? The lines are—are addressed to yourself. With—with your permission, I—I will draw them forth."
Without any permission on Pauline's part, however, Mr. Prawle now drew forth the manuscript to which he had referred. His long pale fingers underwent a distinct tremor as he unrolled a large crackling sheet of foolscap. And then, when all, so to speak, was ready, he swept his dark eyes over Pauline's attentive countenance. "Have I your permission?" he falteringly inquired.
"It is granted, certainly, Mr. Prawle."
After a slight pause, and in a tone of sepulchrally monotonous quality, the young gentleman read these lines:—
"White soul, what impious voice hath dared to blame
With virulent slander thine unsullied life?
Methinks that now the very stars should blush
In their chaste silver stateliness aloft!
Methinks the immaculate lilies should droop low
For very shame at this coarse obloquy.
The unquarried marble of Pentelicus
Deny its hue of snow, and even the dawn
Forget her stainless birthright for thy sake!
Curséd the hand that wrote of thee such wrong;
Curséd the pen such hand hath basely clasped;
Curséd the actual ink whose...."
"My dear Mr. Prawle!" exclaimed Pauline, at this point; "I must beg you not to make me the cause of so terrible a curse! Indeed, I cannot sanction it. I must ask you to read no more."
She was wholly serious. She forgot to look upon the humorous side of Mr. Prawle's action; his poem, so called, addressed her jarred nerves and wounded spirit as a piece of aggravating impudence. The whole event of his visit seemed like a final jeer from the sarcastic episode recently ended.
He regarded her now with a sorrowful astonishment. "You—you wish me to read no more!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, if you please," said Pauline, controlling her impatience as best she could.
"But I—I wrote it especially for you!" he proceeded. "I have put my soul into it! I consider it in many ways the most perfect thing that I have ever done. I intended to include it in my forthcoming volume, 'Moonbeams and Mountain-Peaks,' under the title of 'Her Vindication.' Even the grossly material poetic mind of Arthur Trevor, to whom I read it a few hours ago, admitted its sublimity, its spirituality!"