He smiled, a superior smile.
“Possibly I may try it,” he answered, “if circumstances are favourable! But I would never play a Romeo.”
Her laughter rang out again.
“I should think not!” she exclaimed. “You couldn’t! Oh, dear, no! Fancy you under a balcony ‘sighing like a furnace’ and saying:
“‘Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand
That I might touch that cheek!’
or—
“‘She speaks,—
Oh, speak again, bright angel for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white, upturned, wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air!’”
She spoke the exquisite lines with a delicious intonation of feeling, and the Philosopher nodded his head to and fro with the rhythm of the blank verse like a Chinese mandarin.
“Very good!” he said. “I notice you are fond of declamation. You should study for the stage.”
A flush swept over her features,—she was indignant, but refrained from any outward expression of her thoughts.