"I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a fairy's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
"I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long;
For sideways would she lean, and sing
A faery's song."
As a small boy Arthur had been attracted by the picture, and his mother had told him its story, and had read him Keats' poem. He had read it ever so many times since then himself, and after he met Sophie in the tank paddock that afternoon she had ridden home on his horse, some of the verses haunted him with the thought of her. One day when they were sitting by the track and she had been singing to him, he had made a daisy chain and thrown it over her, murmuring sheepishly, in a caprice of tenderness:
"I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love
And made sweet moan."
Sophie had asked about the poem. She had wanted to hear more, and he had repeated as many verses as he could remember. When he had finished, she had looked at him "as she did love" indeed, with eyes of sweet confidence, yet withdrawing from him a little in shy and happy confusion that he should think of her as anyone like the lady of the meads, who was "full beautiful—a fairy's child."
But Arthur did not want to love her; he did not want to marry her. He did not want to have rows with his father, differences with his mother. The affair at Newton's had shown him where he was going.
Sophie was "a fairy's child," he decided. "Her hair as long, her foot was light, and her eyes were wild"; but he did not want to be "a wretched wight, alone and palely loitering" on her account; he did not want to marry her. He would close her eyes with "kisses four," he told himself, smiling at the precision of the knight of the chronicle; "kisses four"—no more—and be done with the business.
Meanwhile, he wished Sophie were not coming to the ball. He would have given anything to prevent her coming; but he could do nothing.
He had thought of escaping from the ball by going to the out-station with the men; but his mother, foreseeing something of his intention, had given him so much to do at the homestead for her, that he could not go away. When the buggy with Sophie and her father drove up to the veranda, there was a chorus of suppressed exclamations among the assembled guests.
"Here she is, Art!"
"Buck up, old chap! None but the brave, etc."