"No." Without vehemence. "The same girl in every port, in the fire, in the moon-mists; the girl who has been in my heart since I was a boy."
"Oh." A little dagger-stab in her heart. "Then you have come back to marry before you go across?"
"Quite likely."
"Love, marriage, off to the wars!... What is she like?"
"Petrol on water."
She stared blankly.
"If you have never seen wide spreads of petrol on a smooth sea," he explained, "then you have missed something indescribably beautiful. Fire! Dawns, sunsets, moonlight; all the flashing gems in the world, moving, circling, advancing, retreating. The soul of a woman should be like that."
"Are you a poet?"
"Possibly, but inarticulate. I don't know one rhyme from another."
"But poetry isn't rhyme. Your description of oil on water is poetry."