Kitty took another filbert.
"That's 'vurry bright' of you, Adrian, as that American girl used to say. There's something in that. (Yes, I know you don't like it, dear, but I love doing it. I'll pour you out another glass of port. There!) But any idiotic excuse is good enough for a man in love. Has he ever been sentimental with you—quoted poetry, or anything?"
"N-no. Stop, though! He did once quote Burns to me, but that was à propos of poetry in general, not of love-making."
I remembered the incident well. Robin had picked up at a bookstall a copy of an early and quite valuable edition of Burns' poems. He had sat smoking with me in the library late the same night, turning over the pages of the tattered volume, and quoting bits, in broad vernacular, from "Tam o' Shanter" and "The Cottar's Saturday Night." Suddenly he began, almost to himself—
"O, my love is like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June;
My love is like a melody
That's sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I——"