“Ah! Of course you like that,” interrupted the Philosopher.
She went on, calmly:
“the silver flow
Of Hero’s tears, the swoon of Imogen,
Fair Pastorella in the bandit’s den,
Are things to brood on with more urgency
Than the death-day of empires.”
The sweet voice ceased. The Philosopher’s hand inadvertently fell at his side and came in contact with a deliciously soft arm.
“Have you done?” he enquired, in mild accents.
“Yes!” was the reply.
“Well,” he observed, “you spoke your lines very prettily,—that’s all I can say. Your quotation is from ‘Endymion,’ and I suppose you realise that ‘Endymion’ is utterly spoilt by its excess of cloying sentimentality. Yet—”
Absent-mindedly he began to stroke the soft arm up and down with a light caress such as he would have bestowed on a child.
“What I should like to explain,” he said, with an argumentative air, “and what you women will never understand, is that any exaggeration of feeling is always bad form, both in literature and in life. You’ve got plenty of intelligence and you ought to grapple with and master this fact. Certain things are taken for granted and it is not necessary to dwell upon them. Outward displays of emotion should always be suppressed. The brave man hides his wound,—and of course in matters of love the one who says least loves most.”
“I thought,” she interposed, in the most dulcet accents, “that to be in really good form one should never love at all.”