“Why, 'tis night of summer, lady, a night soft and languorous and fragrant of sleeping flowers. But how of grim winter, how of rain and wind and lashing tempest—how think you?”
“That summer would come again, Joconde.”
“Truly here is brave thought, lady.”
“Hark, how still is the night, Joconde, and yet full of soft stir, a sighing amid the leaves! 'Tis like the trees whispering one another. O, 'tis sweet night!”
“Soon to pass away, alas!” he sighed, whereupon she, stirring upon her ferny couch, sighed also; thereafter fell they silent awhile hearkening to the leafy stirrings all about them in the dark, and the slumberous murmur of the stream that, ever and anon, brake into faint gurglings like a voice that laughed, soft but roguish.
SHE: I pray thee talk to me.
HE: Whereof, lady?
SHE: Thyself.
HE: I am a Fool—
SHE: And why sit so mumchance?