But I insisted that I must go on and acquire a college education ... which he maintained would be a hindrance, not a help—"they will iron you out, and make you a decent member of society—and then, Razorre, God help the poet in you ... poets and artists should never be decent ... only the true son of Ishmael can ever write or paint," he waved.
There came to the artworkers one day a young Southern woman, a six months' widow ... she was gentle and lily-coloured and lovely. She had great, swimming, blue eyes, a sensitive red bow of a mouth ... and the lashes of her eyes lay far down on her cheeks. She was the first woman I had met who approximated my poet's ideal of what a woman should be.
I was working for Spalton during my stay, which I meant to make a brief one. I was shovelling coal for him, and firing a furnace.
Wash as I might, I could not remove a faint blackness that clung to the edges of my eyes. This made my eyes glow and seem larger than they were. On such an extraneous and whimsical exterior circumstance hinged the young widow's interest in me.
And I decided that I'd stay a little longer at the Eos Studios ... all winter, if she stayed all winter. And I no longer asked for an easier job. For I wanted my eyes to remain large-seeming, since, half in jest, she admired their present appearance.
She manifested a close and affectionate friendship for me, and all day long all I thought of, as I kept the furnace going, was the evening after dinner, when I could sit close by her reading poetry in a low voice to her.
I leaned over her on every pretext to smell her hair,—her body, through her low-necked dress—to breathe in giddily that delicate fragrance that emanates from the bodies of beautiful women, as perfume from flowers.
Once, in spite of my timidity, I dared place my arm about her shoulders, there in the dark. There was a lecture on over in the "chapel" and mostly everybody had gone to it. Spalton, in passing through where we sat together, asked her if she was coming. "No, she was too tired." She remained sitting by me. Spalton shot me a glance of scarcely concealed resentment and went on. We were left alone.
She began telling me of her deceased husband ... of their devotion to each other ... she applied a dainty thing of lace to her eyes, pausing a moment....